


Burden of Proof

by ygrainette



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, F/F, Minor Character Death, Organised Crime AU, Police AU, The Wire AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-09
Updated: 2015-09-09
Packaged: 2018-04-14 20:20:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 37,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4578585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ygrainette/pseuds/ygrainette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Detective Anna Milton is part of an elite taskforce dedicated to bringing down the mafia controlling New York City. It's impossible without the help of an informant – Bela Talbot, who's in too deep with Lilith's criminal network and desperate for a way out. </p>
<p>Falling for Bela was never in the plan. Then again, neither was a failed sting operation that leaves Anna's idealistic young partner shot and left for dead. Lives hang in the balance, and Anna must decide who she can trust and what she will sacrifice to end Lilith's reign.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burden of Proof

**Author's Note:**

> This is an organised crime/police AU, based on the [incredible] HBO series The Wire. Although a couple of characters show up in minor roles, and the plot borrows elements from seasons 1 and 2, you don't need any knowledge of The Wire to follow this fic.
> 
> This fic was written for the [SPN femslash minibang](http://spnfemminibang.livejournal.com/) 2015.  
> Thank you very much to my extremely talented artist [ doublettea](http://doublettea.tumblr.com) and my fantastic beta[ capsxldier](http://capsxldier.tumblr.com).
> 
> I [tumble](http://capricorn-child.tumblr.com), and adore feedback.
> 
> **Content Warnings:** one rape scene, allusions to sexual abuse, alcohol, smoking, brief drug use, canon-typical violence, off-screen torture, homophobic language, minor character death.

The hotel is middle-of-the-road. Bland. Forgettable. All pastel-coloured anonymity, clean and functional and soulless. The receptionist looks up as Anna enters the foyer, nods a disinterested good evening and returns to perusing her magazine. Dressed in civilian jeans and jacket, without her badge or gun, Anna looks no different from any other traveller passing through the city.

She takes an elevator to the fifth floor, taps lightly on the door. "It's me."

It swings open and Bela yanks her inside by the lapels of her jacket. "You're late," she hisses.

Before Anna has a chance to retort, she's shoved up against the door. The weight of Bela's body pressing into her, hands roaming restlessly over her shoulders, down her sides, running through her hair. Lips hot at her throat. Anna gasps, involuntary, as Bela nuzzles up her neck, finding that sweet sensitive spot behind her ear and nipping at it.

"I thought – I thought something had happened to you. Lilith found you. Or, or Alastair –" Bela's voice breaks. She's breathing rapid and shallow.

"C'mon, babe, I don't die that easy." Anna murmurs, low in her throat. A hand at the small of Bela's back, she pulls her closer, tangles her fingers in caramel-coloured curls and tugs Bela's head back. Kisses her, fierce and hungry. Bela moans into her mouth, a high-pitched sound so at odds with her usual composure it sends a flash of heat through Anna.

God, this girl, this girl, she makes Anna lose her mind, forget everything, all the reasons they shouldn't be doing this –

Bela spreads her legs, silk skirt riding up as she straddles Anna's jean-clad knee and rolls her hips, slow and deliberate and _maddening_. "Stop thinking so much. Time for that later."

Anna grips Bela's waist hard enough to bruise, and loses herself in the motion of their bodies, lips and limbs moving in perfect heated synchrony.

* * *

 

Anna lies back against the pillows, cigarette between thumb and forefinger. She exhales and watches the smoke eddy through the stuttering blades of the ceiling fan. The sweat is slowly cooling on her bare skin – it's a hellishly humid New York summer – and to move seems an incalculable effort.

There's something restless beneath her skin, though. Jittery. It's always like this, after. All her better judgement comes rushing right back when she comes down from the orgasmic high. Bela is a form of insanity, but it's only temporary.

Said temporary insanity is on the other side of the hotel room, by turns re-doing her smudged makeup and tangled hair, fussing with things in her handbag, and thumbing rapidly at her smartphone. As is her post-coital habit, she's put her underwear – well, lingerie, Bela is definitely a _lingerie_ woman – back on, but nothing more.

Today it's black lace. Longline bra, panties with ruffles on the back, suspender stockings. Hell of a view, but to Anna's eyes it makes Bela look almost innocent. She's candid like this. Soft. Like she forgets all her brittle layers of bravado and bullshit with her clothes. It turns back the clock, lets Anna glimpse who Bela could have been, if Lilith had never sunk her claws into her.

"So you and your chums are ready for tomorrow night, I take it?" Bela's voice is sharp, ready to cut glass. There's an edge of sarcasm to it, like she doubts that they are ready, that they'll ever be ready.

Anna takes another drag on her cigarette and says calmly, "We're ready. As long as your information is good –"

"Of course it's good!" Bela whips around to face Anna, points of colour standing out strong over her cheekbones as she glares. "I said Lilith will be there, _she'll be there_."

Sitting up, Anna reaches out to run the backs of her fingers gently down Bela's arm. "I know," she says, soothing, the tone she uses for questioning a vic's family, for talking round a perp when she's playing good cop to Winchester's bad.

Bela shrugs off her touch, pulls away. "You'd better not be getting cold feet about this. It's not you on the line here, sweetheart."

"Hey, hey." Anna stows her cigarette in the ashtray and gets to her feet. She moves to stand behind Bela and holds her lightly by the arms. "I know. Babe, I know." She kisses Bela's bare shoulder, presses their cheeks together. She can feel Bela trembling, her whole body a livewire of tension. "We're going to do this. By midnight tomorrow, Lilith will be handcuffed to some table in an interview room, okay?"

A heavy sigh. Bela tips her head back, offering Anna the long elegant arch of her throat. Her hair falls in scented waves over Anna's shoulders. "Just make sure she is. You realise Alastair's been sniffing around me? They _know_ there's an informant. I'm risking my life for this little crusade."

Anna squeezes Bela's arms a little. In Anna's five years as a Homicide detective, she saw first-hand the casualties of Lilith's mafia and their chokehold on the city. She counted the names. Remembers the faces, frozen on slabs in the morgue. She'll be damned if she sees anymore bodies added to that list. Not on her watch. "Just keep your nerve and it'll be fine, Bela. We're pros. You'll be safe."

She kisses the side of Bela's neck, sucks just a little at the pulse point there, and Bela lets out a small noise that's half-moan, half-laugh. Then she shakes her head, pushes Anna away. "I'm _never_ going to be safe."

It strikes Anna that that gentler, more innocent Bela of her imagination never existed. Not really. She's been living in the dark underbelly of the world that other people close their eyes to, all her life. Even before they first met, eight years ago when Anna was still a rookie and Bela just another teenaged runaway who'd been through things no child should ever have to. The perfect prey for Lilith and her twisted, false brand of motherly love.

"We're going to do this," she whispers, half to herself. "I'm going to do this."

* * *

* * *

 

The first time Abigail tried to run away, she was seven and a quarter years old.

After Daddy left her room that night, closing the door softly behind him, she crept out of bed. She'd started hiding a torch under her pillow when she became afraid of what happened in the dark.

By this yellow light, Abigail got dressed in the clothes Mummy had picked out for the school trip earlier that term, the Geography trip that Miss Bartlett had said they needed warm clothes and sensible shoes for. At the bottom of her wardrobe, Abigail found her Little Mermaid rucksack. She packed a spare set of knickers, her favourite book – _The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe_ – and the soft pink blanket she slept under in the winter. The one that smelled of home and comfort when she pressed her face into it.

Before going downstairs, Abigail took her stuffed lion Leo from where she hid him under the bed so he wouldn't have to see. Leo would keep her safe in the outside world.

In the kitchen she stood on a stool so she could reach the cupboard where Mummy kept the snacks. She took a pack of chocolate biscuits and two cans of Diet Coke. Then she remembered how sick she felt when she'd had too much chocolate and also picked up three apples from the fruit bowl on the dinner table.

She was only just tall enough to undo the latch on the front door.

Once outside, Abigail headed down toward the park at the bottom of her street. In adventure books, people could always live in woods. They found fruit and nuts to eat and spring water to drink. She and Leo would be safe in the park. Could hide there forever.

In the darkness of the night, the park that she'd been visiting since she was a baby was unfamiliar. The trees seemed to whisper to each other, branches passing secrets as they rustled. The lamp posts glowed palely like ghosts, and that made Abigail's heart beat hard in her throat, even though she knew ghosts weren't real. She gripped Leo tight to her chest. She would be brave like him. There were no ghosts. And even if there were, Leo would roar and scare them away.

Abigail and Leo followed the path until they came to the edge of the lake. Then they took a left turn, off the path and into the murmuring trees.

In the dark Abigail kept almost-tripping on tree roots, fallen branches, places where the ground was uneven. She wanted so much to turn on her torch. But then someone might have seen the sweeping light, and found her. She couldn't be found. She _couldn't_.

Presently they came to the little clearing Abigail had been heading for. The one with the hollow oak tree. Under Abigail's chilly hands the bark was rough and cold, but comforting. She was here. They'd made it.

She climbed into the cavern of the tree and curled up with Leo, Abigail's blanket spread over them, listening to the sounds of the forest around them. Abigail had expected it to be silent in the park, but it wasn't. The trees whispered to one another, the undergrowth rustled with the sounds of little animals. Once a rat ran by, right in front of them, its tail long and thick and hairless and horrible.

Abigail was sure she'd never fall asleep. But the next thing she knew, her head was drooping against her chest and her skin was cold and damp and someone's huge meaty grown-up hand was shaking her shoulder. She jumped awake and it was almost light, everything grey and pale.

Her Daddy had hold of her shoulder, his face hovering over her. " _There_ you are, darling." He had Leo tucked under his arm.

Abigail bit her lip to keep from crying.

Her Daddy went on, "Your mother is very angry with you, Abigail. Very angry. You mustn't ever do anything bad like this again, do you understand? But if you promise to be a good little girl and do as I say, then she might forgive you. Do you understand, darling? Do you promise?"

Abigail nodded. Her mother being angry with her was the scariest thing, the most horrible thing in the world. She whispered, "I promise, Daddy."

He smiled. "That's my little girl." He took hold of her and lifted her out of the tree and put her on her feet and hand-in-hand they started to walk toward home.

That was when Abigail understood that no-one, not even her beautiful stuffed lion, could keep her safe.

* * *

* * *

 

"… and then Charlie's just like, _peace out, bitches_ , oh my God, you should have seen their _faces_ , Anna!"

"Yeah, I'm sure." Anna shakes her head, smiling despite herself. She leans back against the side of the surveillance van, and stretches her legs as best she can.

They've been cooped up for hours already – Anna in the blacked-out back of the van with the wiretap equipment, Dean out the front for the eyeball – making sure they beat Lilith and Crowley's people to the rendezvous point. For all that she keeps telling Dean to settle down, shut up and focus, Anna's quietly crawling up the walls herself. You don't exactly join the police force expecting to spend your life sitting around waiting in a van.

But she knows – they both know – this kind of job is the only way to take out the real players. The likes of Lilith aren't going to get caught in a simple drug bust. The long game's the only way to go.

"You know what fucking sucks?" Dean says from the front.

"No, but I'm sure I'm about to find out, Winchester."

"That we're gonna put Lilith in bracelets and just let that son-of-a-bitch Crowley walk. That shit ain't right."

Anna sighs, slaps the side of one of the monitors. "Damn straight it's not. But it's taken us what, a year and a half to get Lilith? One thing at a time. Once she's gone down the top brass will give us more money, people, and _then_ we go after him."

"Yeah." She can hear Dean tapping out drumbeats on the steering wheel. "Yeah, I know you're right, Anna, I do. It just sticks in my craw."

"Mine too." God, it kills her sometimes, how young her partner is. How idealistic. She can remember being like that, fresh out of college with stars in her eyes. And however much she knows that it's the job of a rookie's partner to squash that, to show them how things _really_ are, she hates that. _Hates_ it.

"Dean, listen." She sits up on her haunches, presses her hand to the steel mesh dividing the front of the van from the back. "We've got a shot at Lilith here, and that's more than anyone's had in twenty years. That means something, okay?"

"Yeah, it does." He raps his knuckles against the mesh like they're bumping fists. Anna can't see him for the blackout drapes, but she can hear the grin in his voice as he says, "All thanks to you, dude."

"Oh, you. Shut up."

" _You_ shut up, Milton. You know it's true. You're the one who got Talbot to turn." A sudden giggle, doubtless accompanied by a filthy grin. "How was your hot date last night, anyway?"

Anna glares at the stack of surveillance equipment and doesn't answer. No point giving him the satisfaction. Or the ammunition to tease her with.

"No, no, I'm being serious." There's a scuffle from up front, and then Dean's pulling back one of the blackout drapes to peek through at her. He isn't grinning anymore, green eyes still and solemn. "You sure you're not out of your depth there? I just - Bela Talbot's mercenary as fuck, man. I don't wanna see you get screwed over."

Anna smiles dryly. "You just want everyone to live in domestic bliss like you and Cas. That's not me, Dean."

"Aw, you say that like it's a bad thing." There's a flicker of Dean's bright smile, blink and you'd miss it. "But really, is she someone you can rely on? She ain't exactly –"

"I trust her." Anna turns to look Dean directly in the eyes. "I'm not saying she hasn't done some shady things, she has, but _I trust her_ , Dean. And I know this thing with me and her is all kinds of against the rules –"

"You can say that again," her partner mutters. Kid still hasn't got entirely used to regarding regs and what the top brass say more as suggestions than laws, bless him.

"– and you can tell Henrikson if that's what you think you should do, I won't hold it against you. But I do believe Bela is on our side. I trust her." She grins, self-deprecating. "And that's not just my pants talking, honest."

Dean smiles back, and looks at her steadily for a moment. Then he nods. "Good enough for me, I guess. I'll back your play, Milton."

She doesn't say thanks. Partners don't need to thank one another. Just lays her fist against the wall of mesh between them, nods at him when he bumps his fist against hers.

"And don't worry, I ain't gonna snitch on you to Henrikson," Dean tells her in his most long-suffering tone. Amazing how a twenty-three-year-old man can sound exactly like Anna's mother sometimes. "Just try and be subtle about it, yeah?"

Oh thank God. Viktor's a good man, a good officer, one of the best in the whole damn department and Anna could never hold her head high again if she lost his respect. A scandal she could brazen out, but the disapproval of someone like Henrikson has a way of getting under the skin. "Yeah. I owe you a shot and a beer at the Roadhouse, Winchester."

"Hell, who am I to stand in the way of true love?" He bats his eyelashes, and lets the drapes fall back into place as Anna groans and rolls her eyes.

It's not true love. Not the way Dean means it, anyway – romantic dinners, nights in and lazy mornings together, and getting a dog or whatever it is people do when they settle down. She wasn't kidding when she said all that wasn't her. Never has been. Anna did the whole marriage, two-point-five kids, picket fence thing as a child. It was suffocating then and the mere thought of it is suffocating now.

This thing she has with Bela, whatever it is, it's a terrible idea, logically speaking. Anna knows this. And yet. To back out, and live the rest of her life wondering what might have been, where they could have gone together? No. No way.

The abrupt chirp of static from the personal radio clipped to Anna's belt breaks her from her reverie. _"Okay, we got movement. Fancy-ass white sedan leaving the waterfront house now. I repeat, we have movement, people. Buckle your seatbelts, she's a go."_

"Copy that, Ash." Sitting up, she kicks smartly at the wall of steel mesh separating her from Dean. "Car's leaving Lilith's house."

"Alrighty, let's rock and roll!"

Her heart is thudding against her ribs as Anna checks her gun – loaded and ready – and lifts the headphones attached to the monitor of the wiretap to her ears. Before they can swoop in and arrest Lilith, they need cause. They need to hear the drug talk, the orders of who and how to kill, from the horse's mouth. If Bela's intel is sound, they'll get that tonight.

Twenty years living in a city slowly strangled by the violence and corruption, eight years in the department mopping up the rivers of blood with a Kleenex, eighteen months living and sleeping and breathing this case – and it could all be over tonight.

Anna hasn't felt this much adrenaline singing through her system since she was a rookie. The first time she walked into court to testify, knowing her words would mean the difference between a rapist walking free or getting sent down.

It's been years since Anna was a praying woman, but she was raised that way, and right now? Right now she finds herself offering up a silent prayer that _this_ case ends up like _that_ one. A win for the good guys. Doesn't seem like too much to ask when you put it that way.

Her radio chirps again. It's Henrikson's voice, soft and intent. " _Milton, Lilith's car just passed us on Fourth. Speed she's going, I'd say ETA ten minutes."_

"Okay." Anna runs her fingertips over the buttons and dials of the surveillance equipment. Tuning and re-tuning. She and Ash went over the entire set-up this morning, of course, but she's gotta be sure. Gotta be more than sure. "You ready with the roadblock?"

" _Y'all ready with the bracelets?"_ She can just see the slow grin on Henrikson's face.

"Lieutenant, we were _born_ ready," Dean says, his voice doubling over as Anna hears it from within the truck and over the radio. She can't help but to smile. Oh that kid.

" _Yeah, yeah,_ " Henrikson snorts, but he follows it up easily with, " _Good luck, Detectives._ "

_"Seconded, dude,_ " Ash pipes in. Then the radio goes silent.

Anna breathes. And breathes. And breathes.

The buzz of the dialling tone from the monitor sends chills shocking up and down her spine. "Incoming call," she hisses in Dean's direction, watching the numbers flick up on the screen as the wiretap traces the caller to Lilith's cell. It's a string of digits familiar from days spent poring over transcript after transcript of calls – Crowley's go-between.

" _Yes?"_

_"You still good for the meet, lady?"_

_"You can tell Crowley I'm on my way there now."_

_"Will do."_

The call clicks to an end. Anna shifts into a sprinter's crouch, ready to roll at a moment's notice.

In a low voice, almost a whisper, Dean says, "Car's pulled over, maybe fifty yards to the north of us. White Jaguar with black-out windows." Again that doubling-over. The radio and the voice. Surreal.

"That's our girl alright," Anna murmurs. The jittery adrenaline is fading away, replaced by a vast, calm, intentness. Focus. Everything narrowing down to this. This. No fear, no anger, no indecision. Nothing but _this_.

"Another car following, SUV. Two, three mooks are out and doing a sweep."

So far, so good. Everything they'd anticipated. All they need to do is sit tight, Dean keeping his head down and his scruffy hood up, the carefully-cultivated illusion of a bum asleep in an abandoned car keeping him safe and off the radar. Lilith will walk herself right into their arms.

"Wait." There's a sharpness to Dean's voice that sets alarm bells ringing through Anna's ears. She knows how her partner sounds when he's sensed something _off_ , knows no-one with better instincts for it. Her right hand drifts to the holster on her hip. "Alastair just got out the Jag."

_Shit_.

" _Say again –"_

_"But he's not supposed to be –"_

Anna cuts across both Ash and Henrikson. "Dean, can you see Lilith? Is she there?"

"I don't know – I can't see her but I don't –"

This is not right. Something here is very much not right, and she and Dean are sitting ducks for Alastair and his goons. "Abort. Dean, get us out of here."

"Maybe we can still –"

She throws herself forward, slams the heel of her hand on the partition separating her from Dean. "Winchester, _do it!_ This is –"

Gunshots ring out like a clap of thunder. The truck shudders, rocking on its wheels, and Anna flinches, instinctively covering her head. The engine roars, groans, as Dean floors it, gunning the ignition remorselessly.

"We have shots fired!" Anna shouts so hard it hurts, fingers white-knuckled where she grips the radio, tendons cording in her neck. Caged like a trapped animal, stuck in the back of this goddamn windowless truck, powerless when she should be shooting back, helping her partner, _anything_. "Repeat, we are under fire! I need –"

More shots. Glass shatters, and Dean lets out a bitten-off scream, and the truck swerves sharply to one side, flinging Anna off her feet, crashing into the wall. Her head snaps back, skull slamming against hard metal and lights explode white and red across her vision and she can hear Henrikson yelling for back-up, back-up and medics and answer me _goddammit_ and the truck lurches again and her head bounces off the floor and that's all she wrote. Everything goes black.

* * *

* * *

 

" _This_ is what you called us for?"

Abigail had been expecting the police officer who came to arrest her to be a fat old man. Or a muscle-bound young one like an adult version of the American football players who leered at her at school. Not a doe-eyed woman with deep red hair and an attitude.

"You're the police, ain't you?"

The policewoman rolled her eyes. "Yeah, and that's a kid you've got there. You call the precinct saying you got your Rottweiler guarding a criminal, I'm expecting something more impressive than a fucking ninety-pound girl. Oughta haul _you_ in for wasting police time."

"She was robbing me!" The shopkeeper jabbed a finger at the yellowed sign taped up on the wall. _Shoplifters will be prosecuted_. "They're always – those fucking street kids are always fucking robbing me, poking about in my garbage bins, I wanna see some _consequences_!" The policewoman stared at him, impassive, and he went on: " _And_ she's a hooker – turning tricks out the back –"

"That's a lie!" Abigail blurted out, unable to help herself, and then she burst into tears.

The policewoman made an exasperated _tsk_ -ing noise.

"They're all on the game," the shopkeeper snapped. "I see them – I see them at it, Officer –"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Save it. I'll bring her in to the precinct, but I warn you, we've all got better things to worry about than teenage girls stealing candy bars." She looked at Abigail and said, not unkindly, "Put your hands behind your back, I'm gonna cuff you, just for the drive."

The handcuffs chafed and the seat in the back of the police car was hard plastic and she couldn't wipe the drying tears from her cheeks. The discomfort was almost a relief. Something to think about that wasn't the pain in her stomach or how badly she needed a shower or how _afraid_ she was. And at least the bloody dog was gone.

After a few minutes of driving, the policewoman caught Abigail's eye in the rearview mirror. "Regretting that chocolate yet, kiddo?"

"I just wanted something to eat," Abigail said. Her voice sounded very small. Weak. She hated it. So stupid. She should have just done what the other girls said she should. A blowjob would be alright, it would only take a couple of minutes, and then she could have _bought_ some food. Stupid. Stupid.

The corners of the policewoman's mouth turned down in something that might have been sympathy, might have been contempt. Abigail didn't know which made her feel worse.

When they got to the police station, what the Americans called the precinct, the cuffs came off. The policewoman had Abigail sit down on one side of a desk while she sat down on the other and started leafing through bits of paper. She opened a drawer and produced a brown paper bag and pushed it across the desk. "Eat that."

"No, thank you."

The policewoman gave her a look. Her eyes were hazel, many colours at once, and huge and sad-looking. "You're so pale I can see straight through you. Eat the damn bagel before you pass out."

It was probably best not to upset the police. Abigail pulled the bagel out of the bag and started chewing. It was smoked salmon and she hated smoked salmon but oh god she was so hungry she almost started crying again when she swallowed and felt the first mouthful settle in her empty stomach.

The policewoman asked for her name and automatically she answered, "Abigail." When she realised what she'd said she clapped her hand over her mouth in horror.

Dryly, the policewoman said. "Guess you won't be giving me your surname, then. Age?"

"Eighteen."

"Yeah, nice try."

Abigail bit her lip. "Fifteen."

The policewoman started tapping away two-fingered at an old computer. Abigail kept her head down, eating the bagel. It was so good. So good. She didn't know what was going to happen, whether she was going to go to jail – but at least there was food.

"I've got – Abigail Bela Talbot? I've got a missing child report here, filed by Richard and Alexandra Talbot. Abigail, is that you? Abigail?"

The world was spinning, blurred. The food ashes in her mouth. No. No. This couldn't be happening.

"Abigail, look at me. Look at me, please." The policewoman was crouched in front of her. Took her shaking hands in her own. Gazed up at her. "Did you run away, Abigail?"

She couldn't speak.

"I need you to talk to me. I need you to tell me, so I can help you."

Abigail laughed at that. It sounded shrill and hysterical even to her own ears.

"I want to help you. I promise you, I will do everything I can to help you." The policewoman's face was grave. Her eyes gleaming green and brown and gold. She looked – sincere. Kind. Like angels look in ancient paintings. "I _promise_. So please, tell me, is that you?"

Abigail closed her eyes. Nodded. Tears escaped from under her eyelashes and she swiped at them furiously with her hands.

"Did you run away from home, Abigail?"

Then the tears started for real and she couldn't hold them back. Couldn't stop herself from sobbing like a baby and begging, "Please don't make me go back. Please. I'll – I'll go to jail, I'll do anything – but please don't make me go back to him. Please."

The policewoman's face was white, her lips thin. She gripped Abigail's shoulder, almost painfully tight. "I'm gonna talk to the Major, okay? Okay, honey?"

Abigail put her hands over her face. Folded herself up over her knees. She was shaking. Couldn't breathe. She was going to die. She'd told her secret – rolled over and shown the policewoman her soft underbelly, how weak and sick she was underneath – and she was going to die.

"I'm gonna try and – I'll talk to the Major. We'll sort something out. Just – you just sit tight and eat that bagel, okay?" The hand squeezed her shoulder. Patted it. Hesitant. Then vanished.

Peeking through her fingers, Abigail saw the policewoman go into an office just behind the desk. For a moment she considered making a run for it, but she knew she'd only get caught. She was helpless. As fucking usual. The thought set off another round of tears – exhausted, starving, terrified tears – and she curled up again. Made herself as small as she could.

God, she hated this. Being a victim. Being this weak, this afraid. She hated it so much she could die of it.

The policewoman was in the office a long time. After a while noises started to drift out from under the door. Raised voices. Sick certainty started to ooze through Abigail's guts, inexorable as the starburst premonition of a migraine.

With every moment that passed without the policewoman returning, Abigail felt herself growing ever more cold. Numb. Paralysed with the fear and the knowing that it was all for nothing. All those nights huddled in doorways. Panhandling, sitting in the gutter. The hunger and the thirst. The men trying to persuade her into their cars. All for nothing.

She jumped as she heard something hit the floor and smash. The policewoman yelling, "- a fifteen-year-old _child_ , and you're telling me she has to go back to the man who, who – abused and did god knows _what_ –"

And then another voice, male, saying tiredly, " _Evidence_ , Milton. She'd have to go to court, and –"

"Go fuck yourself, this is bullshit! This is _bullshit_! And I'm not gonna be part of it."

The door slammed open with such force it bounced off the wall. Abigail jumped about three feet in the air. Her head whipped around to watch the policewoman stalk out past her desk and down the corridor, red hair flaming down her back as she disappeared around the corridor. Abigail's heart was gripped tight by – she couldn't name the feeling. She wanted to run after the woman, tell her it wasn't her fault – tell her _thank you_ , and _it wasn't your fault_ –

An older man emerged from the office. He looked at Abigail expressionlessly. "Let's get you home, hon."

* * *

* * *

 

The hospital is too bright. Everything glows and spits and flares beneath the baleful stare of fluorescent lights. It burns Anna's eyes.

She keeps one hand flat against the cool smooth wall as she walks down the corridor, steadying herself against the gentle seasick roll of the ground beneath her feet. There's a nurse following her, saying something about rest and concussion and observation in a voice that hurts her ears. Fuck him. He doesn't know her. Doesn't know not to talk to her about rules, and that she's fine anyway, and she has a partner to find and bitch out because the little fucker _worried_ her, worried her to hell. She has to find him. Has to.

If only the floor would stay still.

There's a corner. The corridor runs across another, a crossroads, like in that song by that old bluesman Dean loves, Robert Johnson? She can't remember. But there's a corner and that means a decision has to be made and she's not sure, she's not sure –

Then she hears the low rumble of Henrikson's voice. And yes. Yes, he'll know. He'll tell her what happened, and where Dean is, and how the fuck are they going to get Lilith now.

The voice is coming from her right. She follows it like some kind of siren song. Stumbles and nearly falls on her face getting around the corner. Grabs the wall and pulls herself up and there they are. Standing in the middle of the corridor.

Henrikson in his shirtsleeves, shoved roughly up above his elbows, as dishevelled as Anna's ever seen him. Staring fixedly at the woman in a doctor's scrubs talking to him. Rufus Turner, glaring of course, he's always glaring, and scrubbing one hand restlessly over his close-shaved head. The other's at his hip. Fingertips tapping a tattoo on the butt of his gun. And Ash, must have hauled ass all the way from their crappy little HQ on the other side of town, pale-faced and wild-eyed, pacing back and forth in place.

There's no Dean.

There's no Dean and the wall is trembling under Anna's hand now.

Ash sees her coming first. He lunges forward saying _shit_ and _dude oh my god_ and _are you all right,_ and it's all of a piece with the nurse tugging at her elbow, all of it nonsense and nothing she needs to hear right now.

Ignoring Ash and the nurse and the doctor's stare, Anna makes a grab for Henrikson's arm. "Where is he? Henrikson, please –"

When he turns around she sees there's a kind of slackness to his face. Gone is the crystalline calm, the focus, the chain-of-command confidence, and he looks vulnerable without it, like he might fall down at any moment and that's bad because she won't be able to catch him. "What – Milton, you aren't supposed to be –"

Evading. He's evading and Henrikson never does that. It's one of the reasons he's the only superior Anna's ever gotten along with and he's evading and all of a sudden Anna feels as though she's been dumped in ice-cold water. Her mouth opens and she blurts out the fear that lay so deep she hadn't even thought it until this moment. "Is he dead? Oh my god, Henrikson, is Dean _dead_?"

Still the nurse is bleating in her ear, and, worse, Rufus Turner's hand is resting light and consoling between her shoulderblades. "Anna, you've been hurt, you need to let the doctors –"

Too much noise and too much sparking agonising light. "I _need_ to know what's happened to my _partner_! Goddammit, Turner –"

"And I'm going to tell you," Henrikson interrupts. "But you have a head injury and first you need to _sit down_." Her chin comes up and he rolls his eyes and barks, "Sit your ass down _now_. That's an order, Detective."

Anna lets hands guide her into one of the plastic chairs bolted to the wall and floor. Only because in giving that order Henrikson sounded like Henrikson again, and oh that relief. That relief.

She looks up to him, a supplicant, as the nurse shines agonising flashlights in her eyes and taps her knees and other things that don't matter, aren't connected to her. This is what matters.

The doctor looks at Henrikson, who nods, and then she vanishes, off into the labyrinth of overbright corridors. Henrikson passes a meaty hand down his face and sighs, deep, deep. Then he says, simply, almost curtly, "Winchester's alive. Critical, but alive. He caught two bullets. One to the shoulder, one to the head."

Ash lets out a little moan. "This is so fucked up. Man, I can't – this is so fucked up."

There's a ringing in Anna's ears that isn't a sound at all. "Sam – does Sam –"

"His people are with him right now," Henrikson tells her. He pinches the bridge of his nose. "And the brass are gonna be here any minute and I need to figure out what the fuck I'm gonna tell Zachariah."

"Little white boy gets shot? Shit, son, you'll have the Commissioner on your ass," Rufus says sourly. He's gripping Anna's shoulder painfully tight. "Naomi Bell will be all over this. God forbid she gave us any fucking manpower or two dimes to rub together to work this case, but a photo op with the grieving family? She's there."

"This fucking city." Henrikson shakes his head. "They sat back and didn't lift a finger to bring down Lilith because it _wasn't worth it_ , and now Alastair Rawls is gunning down our people. Jesus Christ."

Rufus makes a noise deep down in his throat. "If we'd had half a dozen more police out there tonight we might have stood a cat's chance in Hell. As is …"

"They knew we were there," Ash says, suddenly. "They had to. They set us up. Played along like Lilith was gonna show, and sent Alastair to take us out. They know about the wiretap. It's the only solution that fits the data."

Before she truly knows what's happening, Anna is crying. She hasn't cried since she was thirteen years old but there are tears on her cheeks and she can't breathe. "This is my fault. This is my fault."

Rufus shakes her shoulder. "Now that's just crazy talk, girl."

"Bela – I mean, I mean Talbot – she must have flipped on us – told them – it must have been her – and I – I – I brought her into this –"

"We don't know that." Henrikson's voice is stern and solid. Mountainous. "We don't know a damn thing about how Lilith got her information. You may be right, but one thing I do know for sure, we couldn't have gotten anywhere near as far as we have without Talbot. Meg Masters, her whole crew, they are behind bars right now because you rolled Talbot. Now get yourself together, Milton. The waterworks ain't helping Winchester, okay?"

She presses the heels of her hands into her eye sockets until she sees deep red starbursts, spiralling down. _Wake up. Wake up._ This has to be a nightmare and she has to wake up.

"Shit, Zachariah paged me to go brief him and the Commissioner –"

"We oughta go talk to Winchester's people ourselves before the brass can get down there with all their bullshit."

"Yeah. Okay – you and Milton do that. Lester? Come with me, we'll deal with the brass. Let's move."

Anna doesn't lift her head as Henrikson and Ash leave, even when Ash touches her arm gently as he passes. Too busy focusing on the pressure-patterns etched into the backs of her eyelids, and controlling her breathing, and stopping the tears. God, but she's always hated crying.

"C'mon, girl, let's go see your partner. Up you get."

When she stands, the world splits and veers suddenly off to the left, a sickening stagger. Rufus grabs hold of her other shoulder to hold her steady while everything swims back into focus.

The nurse says, "Ma'am, you have a concussion and you really should –"

"I'll be fine," she snaps. She got them all into this situation, this mess, and she has to deal with it, and she won't be coddled. Won't be wrapped up in cotton wool. Not while her partner is fighting for his life.

"You heard the lady," Rufus says, and then his hand is at her elbow, and he's guiding her away down the corridor.

There's no talk on the way. There's nothing she could possibly think of to say. And as long as she's known him, Rufus has never felt the need to fill the air with noise for the simple sake of it. For that she's grateful.

The things you see in a job like this, the things you do, sometimes they need the space and the silence to breathe.

Anna doesn't know how long they've been walking, has lost all track of the path they've taken through this labyrinth, it could have been forever – and then all of a sudden Rufus stops and she can feel her heart beating against the cage of her chest.

It's a room, glass-doored. Inside there's a nest of machinery, cables and screens and flickering lights, and for an insane second she thinks that it's all their tech from HQ. That it's the wiretap, and Dean's been engulfed by it, embalmed by it.

There he lies, so pale and so still, a body on a slab, cradled by cold machines. Castiel is sitting in a chair beside the bed, one of Dean's hands resting motionless in both of his. Even when they were kids together at college, even before he went into the Army, Cas had always seemed old beyond his years, but now, oh God, now he looks ancient. Exhausted. Worn down by the weight of years.

All she can think of is the day she introduced the two of them, invited them both to one of her summer barbecues. Cas had been back from the war nine months and still so quiet, so withdrawn, and she'd had nothing but this instinct that he'd get along with her goofy, earnest puppydog of a partner, that they'd be good for each other. And by the time the sun went down Cas had had eyes for no one else, and Dean had been grinning and blushing like a kid, like he just couldn't stop, and that had pretty much been that.

How happy they'd been that day. How very alive.

She can't look at them anymore.

Outside, there's a boy sitting on the floor of the corridor, leaning back against the wall beside the doorway to Dean's room. Knees drawn up, arms hanging down at his sides, face tipped up to the ceiling, a marionette with his strings cut. In his striped pyjama bottoms and grubby Stanford University hoodie, shoulder-length hair a hopeless tangle, he's obviously been dragged from his bed and hasn't stopped to breathe since. He's crying quite openly. No self-consciousness to it.

Anna's never met him before, but she knows him at once. Sammy. She recognises him from the photos Dean keeps in his wallet. The photos he pulls out when he tells anyone who'll listen how smart his baby brother is, how adorable he and his girlfriend are together, how he made the Stanford honour roll this year and how Dean nearly spontaneously combusted with pride. The brother Dean as-good-as-raised, became legal guardian of at eighteen years of age.

Rufus says, low in her ear, "You and Novak go a ways back, right? You wanna talk to him?"

She shakes her head. "I can't. I just."

He snorts, grumpy, and says, not unkindly, "Yeah, I get it. I'll do it."

He lets go of her arm, crosses the corridor to push through the door of Dean's room. Cas looks up, his face a mask, and Rufus starts to talk, hands shoved deep in his pockets. Anna can't hear what he says. Doesn't want to.

Three unsteady steps take her to stand beside Sam Winchester. She half-sits, half-slides down the wall, vision going briefly blurry then swimming back to solidness. Wraps her arms around her ankles and rests her chin on her knees. They're not touching, but close enough to feel the warmth, the solidity of each other.

Sam says, "You're Anna Milton, right?" His voice is cracked. A rasp.

"I'm your brother's partner, yeah."

For a moment they look at each other, silent. Then Sam tilts his head back up like he's appealing to heaven, and Anna stares unseeing at the notices on the wall, and together they both breathe.

* * *

 

It's past 3 AM by the time Rufus Turner drops Anna off outside her building with a gruff warning to go back to the hospital if her head starts feeling any worse. Automatic pilot gets her up the stairs and into her flat, boots kicked off, jacket on the floor, into bed. She's out before her head even hits the pillow.

The ringing of her phone jolts her awake some unknown time later. Pale grey light is starting to steal in through the cracks of her curtains, and it's by this light she scrambles to find her phone. Her hands are shaking and she can't register the caller ID, blinded by the sudden flare of the backlit screen.

"Is it Dean? What is it? What's happened to him?" She blurts it out in a rush, half-shouting. Gripped by the awful conviction that some extremely kind, extremely efficient voice from the hospital is going to tell her that Dean Winchester passed away tonight, we're very sorry, ma'am, nothing we could do.

_"What? No – for God's sake, Anna, it's **me**!"_

The conviction is so strong, so certain, it takes a long, long, thudding-heartbeat moment for her to recognise the broken glass of that accent. "Bela," she breathes, falls back onto the bed on her back, arm crooked over her eyes. Then the gears start to turn in her concussed mind, and she says again, in a very different tone, "Bela."

" _Yes, yes, listen, I don't know what on earth happened tonight, but I need –"_

"My partner got shot," Anna spits out. "They knew we were there and they shot my partner and he still might die. That's what happened."

On the other end of the line she can hear Bela sucking in an impatient breath. " _Yes, well, that's awfully sad, but not **really** my concern right now–"_

Anna breaks over her. "They knew where we were, you wanna explain that? Lilith knew _exactly_ –"

" _Anna, would you please just –"_

"Tell me you didn't tell Lilith. Tell me it wasn't you." _That's all you have to do._

All she can hear is Bela breathing, fast and shallow. Traffic in the distance.

"Bela?"

" _I have to go_ ," Bela says suddenly.

The dial tone rings in Anna's ear, impossibly loud. She rolls onto her side and throws down her phone. It splits into three pieces – body, case, battery – and goes skating across the floorboards. Her left fist is clutching the bed sheets, knuckles white.

"God damn it," she says aloud.

* * *

* * *

 

The house was dead easy to break into, which was why it never occurred to Abigail that it might be a stash house. She didn't need even half of the tricks she'd learnt from Darrell and Sheena before the cops found her the last time. You'd expect a drug dealer would have actual locks on the windows, and pick a house where you couldn't reach the windowsill by standing on the wall.

So when Abigail checked under the stained mattress and found a ziplock bag filled with little vials, it took her a minute to work out what she was even seeing. And then in walked a fellow with a neck as wide as his head and they stared at each other, both of them dumbstruck, for half a heartbeat.

Then she jumped up and the man pulled out a gigantic handgun that looked exactly like every gun in every action film Abigail ever saw. Except very, very real.

She froze. Stayed stock-still, hands in the air, as the man yelled for back-up. Her body absolutely still while her mind raced. If she could persuade them – let them fuck her or something – maybe if she said –

Back-up turned out to be another huge man and a young woman with a sweeping curtain of blonde hair, dressed in oxblood-red leather and high-heeled boots. Abigail couldn't work out if that was better or worse than another man. If she might be less bloodthirsty – or maybe more, and probably less apt to be persuaded by tits and arse.

"Marco, you stupid fuck, you wanna explain what's going on here?"

"The bitch – she just – she broke in –"

"Yeah, thanks Marco, I can see that." The woman's voice was absolutely dripping sarcasm. "How the fuck did she break in? And what the fuck were you doing while she was at it, playing with your dick? Fucking the non-existent dog? No, don't answer that, I don't want to know. Just tell me how in the _fuck_ she got in here."

Marco opened his mouth and shut it again. "I. Ruby, I –"

"Shut up." Ruby turned to Abigail, eyebrows raised. "How the fuck did you get in here? And how many friends you got waiting out there for you? You better tell me everything, too."

"I'm on my own," Abigail said immediately. "I promise. I was just looking for cash. I didn't know there was – ah – other things in here, I swear to god."

Ruby's kohl-blackened eyes were narrowed to gleaming slits. "Alright, alright, Queen Victoria. And how'd you get in?"

Abigail swallowed. Here goes nothing. "Climbed up onto the garden wall. I could reach the window from there." She reached into the back pocket of her jeans, showed them her screwdriver. "Jimmied it with this."

"Huh." Ruby pursed her lips, obviously considering. "Not your first rodeo, is it? Cops ever catch you?"

"Breaking into a house? No." Pride in her voice and she didn't bother trying to hide it. She might not have the chops for shoplifting yet, might still stick out like a sore English-home-counties thumb on the street, but damn it all she was a decent burglar. Those gymnastics lessons did come in handy, eventually.

"Well, look at that. Maybe there _is_ someone in this room with two brain cells to rub together." Ruby tossed her hair back over her shoulder. Grinned, teeth flashing like pearls. "Okay, Queen Victoria, listen up. I got a business proposal for you."

* * *

* * *

 

Monday morning finds Anna back in the basement of what's probably the oldest, most neglected building the department owns. The first time she turned up here to see the base of operations they'd been allocated, she'd been almost as pissed off as she was depressed. A squad trying to put a crime mogul behind bars and all they get is a mouldy cellar out in the ass-end of town? This fucking department.

Eighteen months later and she kind of loves the place.

When she comes in, Ash is fussing over the computers, and Rufus Turner sitting down and leafing through the transcripts of conversations caught on the wiretap. Anna leans against the bare brick wall, hands shoved in the pockets of her jeans and just watches them.

Henrikson outright forbade her from coming in over the weekend. Ordered her to rest up and stay away. She spent both days sleepless, restless, the need to be working again an itch unscratchable beneath her skin.

Here, in the clammy cool of the basement, decades' worth of police archives a reassuring weight above them, she finally feels something like peace. There's grit under the lids of her eyes, a dull tired ache in her bones, guilt and betrayal sour in her gut – but she's back where she belongs.

"Girl, are you gonna stand there all day or you gonna help?"

To her surprise, Anna smiles as she sits down opposite Rufus, and pulls a stack of manila files over to her side of the table. "Yeah, I know you can't get anything done without me, old man."

Turner rolls his eyes elaborately as Ash punches Anna lightly in the shoulder, snickering. "You goddamn disrespectful whippersnappers," Turner growls, but there are crinkles at the corners of his eyes, and he nudges his packet of chips forward so that Anna can reach it too.

 She flips open the first file – lists of buildings on the south side of town owned by one of Lilith's front companies. Spreads open a plastic-covered street map, grabs a marker pen, and starts marking them out. Following the paper trail might feel like a waste of time at first, but it's the foundation the rest of their work is built on. Has to be done, she knows that now.

For the first time in two days, her mind clears. Stops running through every second of that sting, every judgement call, everything she could have done different to protect her partner. Every conversation she had with Bela. Every stolen hour and smuggled kiss. Every decision Anna made in the long long chain that brought them here. It all just – fades.

There's nothing but this. The work.

For maybe two hours the three of them work in calm almost-silence. Just the tap-and-click of Ash's fingers as they fly over keyboards, the shuffle of paper, Rufus Turner muttering under his breath every now and then.

When the door slams open, Anna jumps hard enough to smack her knee on the underside of the table.

"Hey, boss! How'd it go?" Ash scoots across the room on his swivel chair to look expectantly up at Henrikson.

The Lieutenant's mouth is set, hard and grim. Something clenches tight in Anna's stomach. With Henrikson here, Dean's absence is suddenly all the more real. They are all present but him, four of the five that make up the Major Crimes Unit, and the fifth leaves behind a vacuum, an abyss Anna can't help but gaze into.

"The Commissioner's disbanding us," Henrikson says.

Ash's jaw actually falls open. Turner curses under his breath and kicks the leg of the table savagely.

"What the fuck? Henrikson, what the fuck?" Anna's voice is alien to her own ears. Hollow.

Henrikson throws her a twisted, sarcastic little smile. He hooks a finger around the knot of his tie and tugs, loosening it. "We cost too much, we use up too many resources and we haven't got enough arrests. As far as Naomi's concerned, we're a liability. We're over. Major Crimes is done."

"This is bullshit," Anna says. Too loud. Words riding the edge of a snarl. She's on her feet, heart thudding like she's headed into a firefight. "This is _bullshit_. We have something here, this is _working_ , and they're just gonna pull the plug on us? _Seriously_?"

"'Fraid so." He shakes his head, rubs at his eyes. "You're all to report back to your original details this afternoon. The wiretap is coming down later today. Ash, I'm going to need you to –"

Rufus Turner interrupts, his voice quiet and urgent: "The shooting. Who's investigating the shooting?"

"Winchester's case is being sent to Homicide. As I understand it, it's being handled by Moreland and Greggs."

Anna slams her fist on the table. Hard enough that she drives splinters into the meat of her hand. "Fuck that! Dean's in Intensive Care and we don't even get to hunt down the fucking sons-of-bitches who _did_ this? Goddammit, Henrikson, I thought you gave a shit about this case! Naomi Bell tells you to jump and you just ask her how high?"

"Shut up." Henrikson strides forward, gets right up in her face, nose to nose. He doesn't scream, doesn't yell, but there's fury in his dark eyes. It's the nearest Anna's ever seen the Lieutenant to losing control and that alone silences her. "You think I don't care about bringing Lilith to the law? You think _for one single second_ I don't care that one of my people – one of _my_ people – is in the City Hospital in a fucking coma? You don't know anything about me, Milton. Not. One. Thing."

He's breathing hard. Anna lifts her chin. A challenge.

"We fought her. Me and Major Colvin. We tried to talk the Commissioner around, but –" He breaks off. Closes his eyes for a moment. Lips pressed into a thin line. "The Commissioner is the Commissioner."

"Chain of command," Anna says with a calmness she doesn't feel. Her fist is shaking where it rests on the table. She could be twenty-two again, screaming at her Sergeant while a teenage girl cries helplessly into her palms on the other side of the door, all for nothing. Orders are orders are orders.

It makes her sick.

"So," Rufus Turner says, sour, "that's it, then. Case against Lilith's dead and buried. Case against _Alastair_ 's got no legs unless Winchester wakes up and gives us an eyeball witness. So we give up and go home with our tails 'twixt our legs. Hellfire, I –"

"Who said anything about that?" Henrikson turns to him and Anna would say he's smiling but his expression is far too grim to be any such thing. There's something in his eyes, though. Some fierce gleam. It makes her hope, suddenly. "No-one's giving up."

Anna exchanges a look with Ash. Ash leans forward, dragging a hand through that appalling hair like he does when he's lost in thought. "What're you saying, boss?"

"I'm saying we go back to our details, we give up the wiretap, but we do not give up on this case." Henrikson's dark eyes rest on each of them in turn, holding their gazes, steady and serious. "Keep your eyes open, your ears to the ground. Turner, I know you've got nothing but time on your hands down in the Pawnshop Unit, chase that paper trail while you're at it. Lester, you keep on … doing your computer thing, and keep track of what's going on in Vice. Milton, you're gonna be out on the streets again, so stay in touch with your informants, we'll need 'em. And the minute – the _second_ – Bela Talbot gets in contact? You tell me."

Anna swallows, throat dry. She should tell Henrikson, right now. Tell him everything. How out of bounds she and Bela have been from the word go. How much she fucked up. All the details of that dead-o-clock phonecall.

But there's some part of her that wants to keep those secrets, still. Wants to keep this for herself.

"Yes, sir," she says.

Henrikson nods, curtly. "I'm trusting you-all to be discreet here. Report back to me, but for God's sake keep this on the down low. No doing anything rash. We don't want the brass knowing about this, you understand?"

"We got it, boss." Ash throws up a lazy salute. It's a mystery how that boy even made it through the academy. "We're with you."

Rufus Turner says, "Well, hell. At least I ain't gonna be bored, this way."

Anna looks at Henrikson and says only, "Yes."

* * *

* * *

 

Abigail was sitting in a bus shelter, smoking a menthol and trying not to look like the on-edge teenage runaway she was, when Lilith's car pulled over.

She knew it sight-unseen: a gleaming white limousine with tinted windows and black-on-black wheels. She was on her feet and walking over before Ruby even had time to open the door and whistle to her.

"C'mon, girl." Ruby held out a hand and Abigail took it, let herself be helped into the limo.

The inside was stunning, plush. All sleek black leather. Abigail sat down next to Ruby, and on the bench seat opposite them was a woman who had to be Lilith: tall, golden hair arrayed in perfect curls over the shoulders of her creamy-white fur stole. Beneath the fur she was wearing a black velvet dress, the lines of it simple and expensive. At her feet sat an ice bucket, the green neck of a bottle of wine peeking out over the top. She regarded them both, impassive.

"Lilith, this is the girl I was telling you about," Ruby said as the limousine moved off.

Lilith looked at Abigail coolly. Her eyes were palest blue under perfectly arched brows. "And you think she has potential?"

"Smartest street kid in New York. My grunts don't know what hit 'em." Ruby gave Abigail a conspiratorial smirk.

"Hm." Lilith's gaze raked Abigail from head to toe, appraising every inch of her. Abigail dug her fingernails into her palms and didn't flinch from that searching, hungry stare. "And what brings the smartest street kid in New York City to me?"

Abigail swallowed. Lifted her chin. Pretended she was back at one of her father's London dinner parties, playing hostess. Confident. Privileged. Someone to be respected. "Because I don't want to be a street kid, a runaway forever."

Finally Lilith cracked a smile. "Of course you don't." Half to herself, she said, "That accent! Yes, yes, I could use a girl like that – the police, Border Control – they'd never suspect – yes, Ruby, you've done well."

Ruby squeezed Abigail's hand, and winked, a red-lipstick smirk on her mouth.

"Now." Lilith's attention was back on Abigail, her focus complete. There was something warmer in her gaze now that Abigail had been examined and found satisfactory. Gentler. As though some façade had come down all of a sudden. Her voice indulgent. "Ruby also tells me there is something – some _one_ – you need our help with?"

"Yes." She felt as though she were floating. As though she were suspended in the air, watching from the roof of the limousine, detached from her body. Couldn't quite believe it, that this might be the moment. The moment she had hoped for for what seemed like a lifetime, for long years through which the hope had been the only thing to sustain her. "My – my father. He did things. Does things. To me. And he always has the police looking for me, he always finds me –"

Lilith's perfectly-manicured hand on her knee cut her off. "I understand, honey." She smiled, slow and warm and gentle. "Don't you worry. My boys will take care of everything. _Ev-ery-thing_."

Abigail closed her eyes. Leant back against the creaking leather seat. Relief rushed over her like ice cold water. "Thank you," she whispered.

"Oh, don't thank me, honey. I take care of my own." If there was something serrated in Lilith's smile, she ignored it. She was going to be free. That was all that mattered. "Now. Tell me your name."

She was free. She was starting her life all over again. She could feel that sea change washing through her, sweeping her away. Turning her into someone new, someone stronger. "I'm Bela," she said.

No more Abigail. No more stupid little girl scared of the dark, scared of her father, running away and sleeping in the gutter. No more.

Ruby took the bottle of wine out of the ice bucket, poured out three glasses. Lilith took one, and Ruby pressed the third into Bela's hand. They clinked glasses, and Lilith smiled, triumphant.

"Welcome, Bela," was all she said.

* * *

* * *

 

Anna's old desk in Homicide is awash in paper. It's clearly been used as everyone else's dumping ground for files and binders and spare printouts and all other office-work detritus. She doesn't even bother trying to sort through it, just sweeps the whole lot into a wastepaper basket. In its way, it's cathartic.

Her old colleagues welcome her back. Homicide's a family, bound together by the shared experience of staring straight into the darkest heart of humanity. That doesn't go away if you stop working there – once a murder police, always a murder police. So yeah, they welcome her back, of course they do. Sergeant Landsman shakes her hand and tells her it's been too long, Moreland bear-hugs her and pats her cheek, Greggs slaps her on the back affectionately and tells her the girls at their favourite gay bar have been missing her, McNulty salutes her and passes her a flask of Jameson's under the table. This much, she'd expected.

But there are no pranks, none of the good-natured hazing that always greets rookies and newcomers and returning prodigals. No one steals her coffee when she turns her back. No one prank calls her. No one pretends to be in love with her and rolls out their best worst chat-up lines. When she's on the graveyard shift and falls asleep, forehead to her desk, no one draws on her face or kicks her chair.

There seems to be a consensus between them all, an agreement that Anna is to be treated gently. Warily. They all know the circumstances of her return. Hell, the entire goddamn _Department_ knows.

She misses it. The absence of hazing only serves to draw her attention inexorably to that other absence. The space beside her, the desk opposite her, where her partner should be instead of lying in a hospital bed with machines breathing for him.

She works.

She catches cases, interviews witnesses, goes down to the morgue to inspect the bodies, to the streets to inspect the crime scenes. Fills out paperwork. Makes calls. Reviews CCTV tapes. Bounces ideas off McNulty and lets him do the same off her. Sits in interview rooms and plays good cop, all big sad eyes and concerned soft words. Doesn't think about all the times she did this with Winchester and not Moreland.

She works until she's exhausted, graveyard shift after graveyard shift until her legs won't hold her up and she's light-headed with caffeine and sugar and summer heat and Henrikson gets into an elevator with her and takes one look at her and says, "Detective, get your ass back home and go to sleep. That's an order." And she does, if only because she knows he's not above telling tales on her to Landsman.

As she knew she would, Anna dreams of Bela Talbot.

No, not quite. She dreams of _Abigail_ Talbot, of the teenager she picked up off the street when she was nothing but a rookie herself. The terrified too-thin girl with scars on her arms and handprints around her wrists and haunted, age-old eyes. Abigail never even asked Anna to help her, but Anna tried anyway, tried and failed as Abigail knew she would.

In the dream a creature of black smoke and white eyes is killing Abigail-Bela. Strangling her. Suffocating her. Anna is running, desperate to get there in time, to save her from her demons. It's not far. Not so very far. But it's a dream, and as ever in dreams, Anna's legs won't move as she wills them to. It's like running through water, time slowing down to a treacly crawl.

Bela looks up at her and smiles with bloodied teeth and Anna wakes up.

After Henrikson's little intervention, Anna doesn't push herself quite so hard again. Last thing she needs is the man kicking up a fuss and getting Landsman to put her on medical leave or something. It's killing her not working on _The Case_ , but she thinks not working at all would send her stark staring insane.

She makes sure she sleeps. She makes sure she eats. It feels like nothing more than going through the motions, an airplane in a holding pattern, but she functions.

And if the Chinese take-out tastes like ash on her tongue, and waking up from nightmares with Bela's grinning face in her mind's eye is the only time she feels alive, well. No one else has to know.

* * *

* * *

 

The newspaper called it suicide. A murder-suicide. Richard Talbot shot his wife and then himself. It's a small piece, three inches at most. A daughter is never mentioned.

"See? I told you they'd take care of it." Ruby grinned over her shoulder at Bela, then went back to hunting through the chaos of her dressing table for her favourite earrings.

Bela stared at the folded paper in her hands. Rubbed her fingers over the cheap black ink of the words. She felt nothing – not relief, not vindication, not grief. Just a vast emptiness inside her, and dull shock. She'd expected Lilith to send some muscle to put the frighteners on her father, dig up some dirt and blackmail him, something like that. Not this.

"You're one of us now, and Lilith takes care of her girls." Fitting the gold hoops through her ears, Ruby crossed the bedroom, strutting in her four-inch-high boots. Bela let her take her hands, tug her up off the bed, and turn them to face the full-length mirror.

At the sight of herself, Bela smiled. Her hair was freshly cut, she was wearing new black pumps, blue jeans, and a shell-pink blouse. It was all pretty simple – much to Ruby's disappointment during the shopping trip – but expertly made. Obviously quality. No one would ever take her for a homeless little urchin again. Looking at her reflection reminded Bela of how the weight of that policewoman's bagel had felt in Abigail's starving stomach.

She tilted her head, ran fingers through her hair. Raised her eyebrows and curled her lip, haughty and fierce and untouchable. This was who she was, now. Someone no-one would dare get close enough to hurt.

"We look good," she said to Ruby.

"Damn straight. Now c'mon, we gotta meet Meg's connect at Grand Central in ten minutes. Let's move it."

* * *

* * *

 

Once, when Anna was a green young cop fighting her way up through the ranks at Vice, desperate for a shot at a place in Homicide, she would never have believed she'd tire of it. That one day, this wouldn't be enough for her.

But it isn't. Not anymore.

However much she tries to bury herself in work, lose herself in it, she can't. Heart's not in it. To be a good detective, to do good police work, you need to believe in it. To mean it. To focus on nothing but the work. Especially in something like Homicide. And she can't. She can't.

There are too many thoughts, too many memories, lurking at the back of her mind, living in the marrow of her bones.

She looks up at the board where Landsman writes up the names of the victims, red for unsolved cases, black when the cases are cleared, and sees the face of Lilith. Of Alastair, her smiling executioner. And she knows that all the endless work of the Homicide division is futile, all their blood, sweat and tears is for nothing, because as long as those two are still out there, the killings will never stop.

They were so close. So goddamned close. And then she fucked it all up. She trusted Bela, and she fucked it all up.

And every time Anna sees Moreland and Greggs, their heads bent together as they pore over the case files on Dean's shooting, her blood runs white hot and she can't breathe. That should be her. She should be a part of that.

Once, just after she joined Homicide, old Bobby Singer told her, " _Every detective gets one case. One case that matters. The case that you'll carry with you forever, win it or lose it."_ And, idealism matched only by ambition, Anna had said, " _Just the one?"_ That had made Singer laugh. He did a sharp about-turn in his wheelchair, rolled away to fetch another beer, and said, " _Yeah, Milton. Just the one, if you're lucky. More, if you ain't."_

She thinks she finally understands what he meant.

* * *

* * *

 

What a team they made, the two of them. Bela and Ruby. Ruby and Bela.

Every Monday they counted the money, piling it up and snapping on the rubber bands, tossing it into a briefcase. Bela would put on her make-up, shrug into a blue pencil skirt and matching jacket, walk it downtown and into the office of Lilith's lawyers. Every week, more and more.

Some upstart was trying to muscle in on their territory, and Lilith told them: _Impress me_ and let them deal with it themselves.

They made a show of being scared, holding Marco and the muscle back whenever Gordon's people made a move. Ruby called for a parley, a truce. They held it in the backroom of a dive bar, neutral ground. Batted her eyelashes and fed them some story in the quavering voice of a girl who's realised she doesn't like playing with the big boys. Gordon fell for it, hook line and sinker, so complacent, so focused on Ruby, a slip of a thing without her arrogance wrapped tight around her, that he never thought to wonder where Bela was.

She was waiting outside when the parley ended. A pair of heavies flanking her and a binbag filled with dope and cash at her feet – taken from Gordon's own stash house. Gordon had swung around, snarling with fury, only to find himself staring down the barrel of not just Marco's gun, but the pistol Ruby had hidden up her dress.

They left Gordon with Marco, took the cash and ran out into the autumn night, laughing and laughing and laughing.

That was the first night they kissed, the first night they fucked, high on adrenaline and crisp green bills and the best cocaine in the city. Ruby kissed her way down Bela's neck, left hickeys on her collarbone, her stomach, her thighs. Fucked her wild and inelegant and joyous, laughing still as she found somewhere deep inside of Bela that sparked and sang, that made her see in colour, made her lose her mind. The first time she'd ever come for real.

And then Bela rolled them over, Ruby sprawled out on the bed in nothing but her jewellery and her knife in its thigh sheath, decadent and dangerous and loving it. Kissed her till her lips were swollen, buried her face between her legs, and then Ruby hauled her up and licked the taste of herself out of Bela's mouth.

Lying in the bathtub later, watching Ruby count out Gordon's money, Bela thought this might be happiness.

* * *

* * *

 

On a Friday when the air pressure is migraine-heavy and the humid air sulphurous with an approaching storm, Anna catches a case, down by the docklands. It's an Alastair classic. The vic is handless, faceless, throat cut and yawning open. Naked. The warehouse floor and walls scrubbed of evidence by a high pressure hose.

Anna sends John Doe's body out to the city morgue. Calls in the Forensics team and spends hours with them, combing over every inch of the murder scene until the muscles in her back are cramping and her eyes are watering. As she knew would be the case, they find nothing. There's a reason the last conviction on Alastair's file is a bar fight fourteen years ago. The man's a professional.

Nothing will bring that one down, short of the wire. Or Dean coming out of his coma with no amnesia and no brain damage and able to identify the man who shot him in the head.

By the time they close up the scene, Anna is sick to her stomach with the frustration. The futile rage. She wants to kick something. Punch something until her knuckles are broken and bleeding. She wants to burn this whole goddamn corrupt, rotten, rabid city to the ground. She wants to go to sleep and never wake up.

Instead she gets in her car and turns the ignition and drives. Radio on so loud she can't hear herself think.

Somehow she ends up outside the Roadhouse. She'd say it's an accident but she knows it's not.

The evening is still young and the place hasn't filled up yet, most of the beat cops are still out there, so though it's sticky-hot she doesn't have to fight her way to the bar. Gets a stool down the far end. Orders a beer and a shot. Jack Daniels. Tequila to celebrate clearing a case, whiskey to forget about one you can't shift, that's their code. Hers and Dean's.

The first shot sinks without trace. Doesn't even burn. Under her sweaty palms the glass beer bottle is blessedly cool.

It's not nearly enough.

Anna lifts her hand to the guy tending bar – no-one she recognises, Ellen must have hired some new blood – slides a twenty over the stained dark wood. "Keep 'em coming. I don't wanna see the bottom of my glass, okay?"

For a moment the man looks at her with narrowed eyes, then holds his hand out. "Car keys."

She unclips the keyring from the carabiner hanging from her belt loop and tosses it over. In return she receives another measure of JD, generous this time. A fair trade.

Five more shots and another beer into the evening, everything is blurred, colours popping, overbright and woozy. Anna leans back and stares up at the ceiling fan, exhales and imagines blue cigarette smoke caught in the revolving blades. Goddamn smoking ban. Right now she wants a cigarette more than she wants anything else in the world, except to lose herself in an alcoholic haze.

The plaster of the Roadhouse's ceiling is covered in graffiti, foul-mouthed keepsakes of generations of cops. Once, the summer after Cas was back from his last tour of duty, she came here with him and Dean, and they'd laughed so hard when Dean told Cas someone had written _gullible_ on the ceiling and he actually looked up to check. They'd laughed like mad bastards. And then looked for and found where Dean's father and Rufus Turner and even Henrikson scrawled their autographs across yellowed plaster. Anna's signed her name up there, too, sitting on Pamela Barnes's shoulders, the night she finished probation and became an official member of the Homicide division. Traditional, just like being bought so many drinks by the other detectives that you puke in the gutter and show up to work hungover as fuck the next morning. Ah, memories.

So many memories.

Someone has the jukebox in the corner playing _When The Levee Breaks_. Led Zep version. The brooding bass line pounds over and over behind Anna's temples, unrelenting as the oppressive heat, the throb of her heartbeat. _Cryin won't help you. Prayin won't do you no good._

Maybe she should go home. The thought occurs to her sudden and unbidden. Maybe she's had enough to drink and she should flag down a cab and go home.

Then the flash of golden hair catches her eye, draws her gaze across the room to Jo Harvelle, swinging herself over the bar to kiss her mother's cheek. When she turns away Anna gets a glimpse of her, crystal clear through all the dizzy swirl of the world around her: fresh and baby-faced and impossibly young. Nineteen years old. Same age as Sam Winchester.

Just like that it hits Anna like a fist to the stomach, driving the breath from her lungs: everything she shoved down into a safebox at the back of her mind and did her best not to think about. Because she can think about Dean, she can think about how small and defenceless he looked in that cold hospital bed, can even think about how he might wake up brain-damaged and never do police work again. But what she can't, what she _can't_ think about is Sam.

Anna still remembers how things were after the car crash that had claimed both her parents. She was twenty-three and for years hadn't spoken to them beyond stilted Christmas-and-Thanksgiving dinners, but still she felt shattered, a tree struck by lightning, hollowed out and wailing in the wind. And she remembers sitting on a hospital floor beside Sam Winchester as he wept for the last family he has left in the world.

Nineteen years old. Nineteen years old.

Anna puts her forehead down on the sticky top of the bar. Stares into the red nothingness of her closed eyes. She doesn't cry. It might have been easier if she did.

She loses track of time and where she is and what the voices all around her are saying. When strong hands grip her by the shoulders and haul her upright it feels like being dragged out gasping from deep beneath the water. Her eyes roll and she can't focus until someone slaps her cheek, light but sharp enough to sting, and then she can see again.

It's Ellen standing before her, lips thin. "There. With me, Anna?"

"Yeah."

Ellen slams a pint glass of water down in front of Anna. "Drink that."

She obeys. Henrikson would be impressed. Get enough drinks in her and even Anna Milton respects chain of command.

When she's done, Ellen takes the glass, refills it, and gives it straight back to her. Leaning forward, elbows resting on the bar, she says, "Now you listen to me, Anna. You need to pull yourself the fuck together."

"I'm not –"

"Don't give me that. D'you think I was born yesterday?" Ellen picks up a glass, rubs at it with a washcloth, but keeps her eyes on Anna. Her voice is stern, a cross between mother, schoolteacher and drill sergeant. "I've seen more screwed-up police prop up this bar than you've had hot dinners. And I don't stand for that nonsense. Not from you. Running yourself into the ground? _This_?" She gestures sharply at Anna, washcloth fluttering from her hand like a streamer. "You think any of this is helping Dean, huh?"

"It's not. I know. But I just –" she breaks off. Never been exactly stellar at talking about her feelings. It's why she always got on so well with Cas. Neither of them needs to talk. It's enough just to sit, and to _be_.

But Ellen nods as if she knows just what Anna means. As if she can see right down into her soul, and fuck, Anna hopes she can't, because there are things down there no one should ever know. "Look, Anna, I'm gonna say this once and once only, so listen up. What happened to Dean? Not your fault. He's a cop, he knew the risks, he made his own calls. Shit happens, that's all." Her chin comes up. "Ain't no-one knows that better than I do."

"I know." On the far wall, beside the dully gleaming liquor bottles, hangs a photo of Bill Harvelle. Dress uniform. He looks so natural in it. So real. Anna doesn't think she's ever seen anyone she knows look like that. Like it came to them as a blessing and not a burden.

She rubs at her mouth with the back of her hand. Ellen's level gaze and her dead husband's sightless one are heavy. "It's not. I'm not so much – it's about Sam." Anna's head drops down and she presses the pads of her thumbs against the bridge of her nose. "I can't stand it – I keep thinking. If Dean dies. Or won't wake up. What's gonna happen to Sam then?"

A smart smack to the back of the head makes her jump, knees knocking against the bar. "Goddammit, I've known that boy since he was in diapers, and you think I'd let the kid _starve_? Or your friend Cas? Girl, give us some credit here."

Ellen's face is severe, flinty, but she softens some when Anna looks up, wide-eyed. "Come on now. Don't give me the puppy eyes. I'll call you a cab – go home, sober up, get your shit together. Let me and Cas look after Sam and Dean, you do your job and get us justice, okay? Bring in the motherfucker that did this."

"What if I can't?" The words slip out through rubbery lips before Anna can stop them. She grips the edge of the bar, sticky with stale beer. Watches Ellen's face weave in and out of focus.

"None of that." Ellen pats her cheek. Her hand is cool, shockingly so against Anna's flushing skin. "You are natural police, kid. Now don't argue, I know it when I see it."

She turns away, reaches for the battered handset of the Roadhouse telephone. Anna doesn't correct her. Ellen's watched cops drift in and out of the Roadhouse all her life, was married to one, she knows as much about the department as any civilian ever will, and she doesn't take kindly to being told she's wrong in her own bar.

But when Anna closes her eyes she all she can see is Sam Winchester and Abigail Talbot, the faces of the two teenagers she failed in the worst possible ways.

* * *

 

The next day is a scorcher, the sun beating down unrelentingly. Even through Anna's shades it's painfully bright, sets her temples pulsing. She catches the subway from her apartment building up to the Roadhouse, and of course it's packed out and she spends the entire journey with her face pressed against someone's sweaty armpit. When she just can't take it anymore she gets out a stop early and walks. At least this way she can breathe.

The Roadhouse is open pretty much all hours. Ellen makes a decent burger and a damn fine rare steak, and there's usually a couple of punters in there at any time, shooting pool or playing darts, a few old-timers drinking their way through the day. When Anna lets herself in, it's blessedly cool and quiet, empty but for an older guy she half-recognises from her time in Vice reading the _New York Times_ in the corner.

Jo Harvelle is leaning on the bar, reading a battered paperback, one hand absently twirling the end of her ponytail. At the sound of the door opening, her head comes up and she grins at Anna. "Oh hey, Miz Milton, my momma said you'd probably be in this afternoon. How you doing?"

"That's _Detective_ Milton to you, kid," Anna says over the rim of her sunglasses, her best impersonation of a movie cop. Jo laughs, a gleefully genuine snorting laugh, and Anna has to smile at that. She may talk tough, but that girl is a sweetheart. "Yeah, I'm good. You got my keys there?"

"Yup." Jo reaches under the bar and holds them up, light winking off the metal as she swings the keyring around her finger. Anna claps her hands lightly, expecting her to toss them over, but she doesn't. Closes her hand around them.

"Jo? Not really in the mood for playing games here."

"Yeah." For a moment, Jo hesitates, then she sighs and throws Anna the keys, underarm. The playfulness is gone from her face, her eyes dark. "Miz Milton. Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

She worries at her lower lip with her teeth, glances away and then back again. Hesitates. Anna's about to prompt her when she says in a rush, "Do you guys know who did it? Shot Dean?"

Christ, Anna is really too hungover for this. She rubs at her temple, runs her fingers through her hair. Says as gently as she can, "Jo, I'm not on that investigation. And even if I were, I couldn’t give you any details. You know that."

"Yeah, I guess I do." Jo's smile has sadness written right through it. "It's just driving Sam crazy, not knowing what's going on. Me, too. The doctors won't say anything, the cops won't say anything …" She shrugs, lifts her hands helplessly. Anna's gut twists with guilt.

Well, what the fuck. "All right. You didn't hear this from me, but – it's not ID-ing the perp that's the issue, it's _proof_. Our guy is a pro. Best shot we have is Dean waking up and giving us an eyeball witness." Or at least it is now the wiretap's down and Bela's betrayed them and gone to ground.

"Shit." Jo sighs heavily, shakes her head. Her mouth twists with the kind of cynicism you learn early and hard in a city like this. "It's never easy, is it?"

Anna reaches out and squeezes her shoulder. Looks her in the eye and tells them both, "No. But that doesn't mean we give up."

* * *

* * *

 

"Alastair, this is Bela, she'll be accompanying you for this job."

"Enchanted." He kissed her hand, warm damp breath on her fingers. Eyes gleaming as he looked up at her, a slow snake smile on his gaunt face.

Bela giggled, hand over her mouth when Alastair straightened up, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Hand lingering, thumb brushing over her cheekbone. Her mouth was bone dry. Alastair. Lilith's blue-eyed boy. A name to conjure with.

Sprawled out elegantly on the nightclub's best sofa, delicate champagne flute in one hand, Lilith watched them with hooded eyes. Smiling indulgently like a mother watching her children at play. "And once you're in Amsterdam, once you've handled the exchange, Bela, you have a weekend off. See the sights, enjoy yourself."

"I'll handle the – ah – wet work." Alastair's nasal voice was low with amusement next to her ear. Bela kept her smile on her face.

She wanted to say no, tell Alastair to fuck off, this isn't going to happen, he can bloody well take the package to Amsterdam by himself – but Lilith was watching her. Waiting, expectant. And Alastair's fingers caressing her neck and she didn't know half of what those hands had done and she didn't _want_ to know.

So all she said was, "Of course."

The job went like a dream, the first part of it at any rate. Bela was dolled up in a summer dress and her best jewellery, real diamonds in her ears, Alastair crisp in a suit, the pair of them picture-perfect. Check-in at JFK couldn't have gone smoother, security and passport control dazzled as ever when Bela pulled out all the stops on the BBC accent, reaching back through time to Oxford garden parties and playing it to the hilt. She slept on the flight, Alastair's hand on her knee and Ruby's sleeping pills in her blood.

She made conversation with the grey-faced customs officials at Schiphol, her smile unflinching while her heart fluttered against her chest. The name on her passport wasn't hers. Here she was, in a foreign country, with no one but Alastair to turn to if –

But it was fine. It was always fine. She was Bela fucking Talbot and nothing would go wrong for her. Nothing would dare.

A taxi from the airport took them to the train station, and they met Crowley's go-between, sheltered by the flood of tourists and commuters all around them. Briefcases were exchanged, identical. And then it was done.

Bela went to the hotel that had been booked and stowed the briefcase away under lock and key. Alastair had vanished off to do the thing Lilith kept him for, the thing Bela would never ask Ruby about. Understanding the abstract and the end result was enough.

So Alastair was gone, and she had a credit card and a city to explore. A great European city such as she hadn't set foot in since she was twelve years old. What more could a girl ask for?

It was a hell of a weekend. Museums, art galleries, sipping cocktails on canal boats as the sun went down and the thousand glittering lights of the city came up. Beautiful. She was living the life, baby, oh yes. Bela Talbot, queen of the world.

Except she had to go back to the hotel eventually.

And so did Alastair, and when he came back – smelling of disinfectant and lime, smells she didn't want to guess at the provenance of – his blood was up. His corpse-pale eyes were alive and his long gaunt fingers strong as steel. The moment he let himself in through the door and Bela looked up from reading a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel, stretched out on the bed in bare feet, she knew what was going to happen. Knew fighting it would only make it worse. Same way she'd known these things at seven years old.

He had her in the bathroom, shoved up against the cold marble counter. One hand wrapped around her throat, the other tight as a vice on her hip. Face pressed into her neck, teeth sunk into the curve of her shoulder. She braced herself against the counter, forced up on tiptoe, riding out the savage snap of his hips as he thrust into her, grit her teeth and breathed _in-two-three_ , _out-two-three_. When he climaxed, spilling hot inside her, he bit her neck so hard she let out a little scream. In the mirror her face was ashen, eyes huge and pathetic with unshed tears.

She'd sworn she'd never have to do this again, never have to feel this again. Promised herself.

In that moment, she could have killed them. Alastair and Crowley and Lilith too. She could happily have killed them all.

* * *

* * *

 

The call comes just over a week after that evening at the Roadhouse. A month to the day from the sting that wasn't. Just when Anna stops dreaming of Bela every night.

It's a rare night off and she's settled into a Netflix mini-marathon, lying on her threadbare sofa all burritoed up in a blanket, laptop on her knee and a pint of cheap ice cream in her hands. At this point her eyelids are drooping a little, and she's struggling to focus on the pictures flashing across her computer screen.

She's weighing up the effort of hauling her ass up off the sofa and into an actual bed when her cell phone rings. The caller ID is a string of numbers she doesn't recognise, but that's not exactly unusual when you're a detective who spends her days handing out cards and saying _call me if you remember anything more_.

"Hello, Anna Milton speaking."

An explosive sigh of relief. " _Oh thank God, thank God, Anna –"_

That voice jolts her upright. Chases all thoughts of sleep from her mind. Anna slams her laptop shut. "Bela."

" _Anna. I … I need help."_

"What? What's –" She takes a deep breath. Feels her heartbeat tripping against her ribs. In the back of her mind she can hear Henrikson's voice: Focus. _Focus_. "What's the situation?"

It all comes out in a rush, Bela's customary poise vanished to the wind, words falling all over each other. " _It's Alastair. I've been on the move, I've been trying, and it's been working so far but he keeps on coming for me. And I can't keep it up. I hurt my ankle and he knows where I am and – Anna, please. I don't have anyone else. Please."_

There's something like a sob in that last, harsh over the static-crackling connection. Anna presses her free hand to her temples, closes her eyes. Does her desperate best not to imagine Bela lying in a city morgue, no hands and no face. "Tell me where you are."

A long silence. As though that, that one admission of vulnerability was all Bela could bring herself to give.

"Bela. I need to know where you are."

She names a street in one of the city's worse neighbourhoods. Gives the number of a house, a vacant. Anna tells her to sit tight and she'll be there in ten minutes. Hangs up without saying goodbye.

The blanket gets kicked off and left on the floorboards, what's left of the ice cream dumped along with it. Anna stuffs her phone in her pocket, shoves her socked feet into her boots and scrabbles at the laces. Checks her gun is loaded, straps on the shoulder holster. Badge and a flashlight in the pocket of her most battered leather jacket, the one she wears when she needs to look like not-a-cop.

A moment of consideration, and she adds a Dictaphone and a pair of handcuffs.

* * *

* * *

 

It was deep winter when Bela got up the courage to talk to Ruby. Ruby had spent all afternoon playing her favourite electric guitar – the old one she'd had when they'd first met, not the one bought after their share of profits increased – which was always a sign of good humour in her. Good humour and a clear mind, a combination that was rarer than ever.

Bela brought her a warm mug of spiced apple cider, and Ruby smiled and kissed her and pulled her down to sit on her lap. Kissed her again. Tangled hands in her hair. It was clear where this was going and though Bela's blood hummed at the thought, she pulled back. She felt she'd go mad if she didn't say something about this.

"Ruby, I wanted to talk to you about something."

"What is it? Why so serious, hm, Queen Victoria?"

Bela couldn't find an answering laugh. "Look, it's Alastair. I'm sick of being around him, I'm sick of seeing that bastard creeping around, breathing down my neck. We've got to do something about him, fuck him up somehow, I don't know, because I am _this_ close to bailing –"

"Shut up." The words slammed down with a crash like metal shutters. Bela flinched at how tight Ruby's grip on her had suddenly become. "You never, you _never_ say shit like that. Not even to me. Okay?"

All of Ruby's usual sarcasm, her lightness, her maddening refusal to take anything seriously, it was all gone. Her face was fixed, rigid with something Bela thought might be fear. It was the first time she'd ever known Ruby to be afraid of anything. Anything. "Ruby, I don't –"

 Ruby shook her, once. Twice. "Shut _up_. Don't ever let anyone hear you say that again. _Okay_?"

"Okay."

For a moment Ruby closed her eyes. Exhaled. When she opened them she was herself again, languid and reckless. "Hey, I got some Russian vodka yesterday, the good stuff. How about a little party, just you and me, yeah?"

Bela smiled. Her joints were itchy with anxiety, but she tossed her hair and smirked down at Ruby and said, "Sounds like a plan."

* * *

* * *

 

Anna leaves her car around the block, and walks to the house that's serving as Bela's foxhole. Collar of her jacket turned up, every sense alive and at full capacity. When you're walking into a situation like this, you have to be aware of everything –the dull glow of the full moon through New York smog, the teenage boys sitting on corners, hoods drawn down over their faces, the houses and their boarded-over windows, where the alleys are and which are populated by sleeping old men and which by girls shivering in too-thin dresses, the echo of your own footsteps.

Every inch of her is turned outwards. Her blood is humming.

The house Bela directed her to has no door. A sheet of plywood has been nailed in place, obscenities scrawled across it.

Anna raps her knuckles against it once, feeling faintly absurd in the back of her mind, and takes hold of it by the edges. It comes away at one side, swinging forward and revealing a maw of absolute darkness.

This is a bad set-up. An abysmally bad set-up. Walking into this is practically _asking_ to be ambushed by Alastair and the rest of Lilith's enforcers. She should call for back-up, call Henrikson, call Rufus, call Cas – make sure _someone_ knows where she is and what she's doing. But she keeps thinking of Bela Talbot at seventeen crying into the palms of her hands, and the way she sounded over that tinny burner-cell connection.

She ducks through the opening. Pulls the boarding back into place behind her. Stands still and silent for a moment, listening to the drone of mosquitoes and the periodic calls of alley girls to kerb crawlers, waiting for her eyes to adjust.

"Bela?" she says, hesitant, and shifts forward one step. One hand at her gun. To her left is a staircase that looks like it just might take her weight. To her right a room that feels empty, so much dead space, the door hanging off its hinges. The faintest chink of light escapes from beneath the door in front of her.

Another step forward and she hears a breath catch at the back of a throat, someone scrabbling to their feet.

The door opens and there, backlit with anaemic blue light, stands Bela Talbot.

They stare at one another. Both of them statue-still. Anna's breathing is so loud in her ears.

Then they move, some telepathic signal flashing between them and bringing them together. Anna strides forwards and grips Bela by the shoulders, and Bela wraps cold fingers around her wrists and sighs into the touch, steers them back through the door. Anna kicks the door shut behind them, instinctively uncomfortable with such a vulnerability in her blind spot, and unwilling to take her hands off of Bela for one moment.

"Well, well, fancy seeing you here," Bela says, her voice all singsong mockery and even though she knows it's an act, Anna just can't take that. She can't.

"I said I was coming for you," she snarls, and Bela surges up and her cold cold fingers are framing Anna's face, tangling in her hair, and her lips are pressed against Anna's mouth. It's a kiss of nothing but desperation and longing and anger. Anna has Bela by the arm and by the hip, holding her fast as she arches against Anna's body, holding her so tight her knuckles ache, so tight that this time she can't run away. Their mouths are open against each other, no finesse to the thing at all, just drinking one another in, tasting what's been denied for so long.

Beneath Anna's hands Bela is shaking like a leaf in the last breath of autumn, but when she tries to pull back a bit, to gentle the kiss, to get them back within sight of where they should be – Bela lunges. Bites the flesh of Anna's lower lip, a starburst of pain followed by the bloom of blood on her tongue. Presses their hips together.

That's it. Anna's world slipslides and all those thoughts of protocol and procedure and where they are and everything other than _Bela, Bela, Bela,_ are so many grains of sand running between her fingers.

She ducks her head and kisses the tender arch of Bela's throat, soft then savage, smearing the blood of her bitten lip over the place where she can feel the jackhammer beat of Bela's pulse. Cold fingers grip the nape of her neck, pull at her hair, scratching over her scalp, moving, always moving. Under Anna's mouth, Bela half-sighs, half-moans, and Anna feels that sound vibrating through her lips. Bela tastes sour, of sweat and cigarettes and shitty diner food, and of herself, and it’s the most delicious thing Anna's ever had on her tongue.

Anna lifts her head, meaning to kiss Bela again, make her taste herself, and in that moment to the next, Bela is gone. She slides out of Anna's hands, turns away. Leaves Anna with only stale air on her skin.

Not for nothing was Bela Talbot a thief beyond equal.

Back turned, Bela shrugs her shoulders, straightens her clothes, shakes out her hair.  Making sure the mask is still in place, painting over any trace of vulnerability. Anna doesn't watch. She's seen the process often enough. Instead she glances around the room she finds herself in, scouring it for clues. Focuses on that and not on the way her skin is still humming with the electricity of lust.

It's obviously intended to be a kitchen, though there are only cables hanging from the wall where an oven should be, and most of the cupboards are doorless. The back door – the glass in it cracked but intact – leads out into a wildly overgrown yard. At the foot of it, Anna knows, a backalley runs parallel to the road. In the centre of the floor there is a collection of takeout boxes, a rucksack, an LED lantern.

"Not exactly the Ritz, is it?" Bela is crisply sarcastic, as ever, but there's a brittleness to the words. Cracks running through her bone-china poise.

Anna turns and doesn't bother trying to hide it as she scrutinises Bela. Files away every change in the back of her brain. The nondescript hoodie and dirty jeans that have replaced Armani and Ralph Lauren. How thin she has become, sunken eye sockets and razored cheekbones thrown into savage relief by the stark blue light.

"Like what you see, sweetheart?"

It’s hard not to rise to the bait of Bela's defiantly lifted chin, the deliberate tilt of her hips. In her jacket pocket Anna runs her thumb over the cool metal of the crest on her badge. "Cut the bullshit, Bela, what is going on?"

"What does it _look_ like?" Bela snorts, tosses her head. Stray strands of hair catch the light. "Good God, I thought you were a detective."

"I said cut the bullshit." When Bela doesn't react, Anna shrugs like it doesn't bother her any, reaches into her pocket. "I mean, I can bring you down to the station and we can discuss it in an interview room –"

"You wouldn't. You can't. You can't arrest me, you don't have probable –"

"Don't I?" Anna's head snaps up and she stares right at Bela. Looks into the beautiful, treacherous, maddening face from her dreams. "You gave us intel on Lilith that lead us right into a set-up. My partner was shot in the head. Alastair is in the wind, we lost the wire, we are further than ever from Lilith, and you vanished off the face of the fucking planet. I'd say I have a pretty damn good case to bring you up on conspiracy."

"That's." Bela opens and shuts her mouth. Brings her hand up, fingers fluttering at her collarbone, her neck. The manicured nails are bitten down to the quick. "That's not what happened. Anna, you have to understand, that is not what happened."

She wants to believe the fierce certainty in that voice. Oh God, she wants to.

Anna leans back against peeling wallpaper, fishes in the back pocket of her jeans for a pack of Marlboros. When she has the cigarette sitting comfortingly in the V of her fingers, she says, "So tell me what did happen."

For a moment Bela gnaws at her own thumbnail, then yanks her hand away from her mouth, cursing under her breath. "May I have a cigarette?"

"Sure thing, babe." Anna's holding out the lighter for Bela to lean into when she registers what she just said. The way the endearment rolled off her tongue, so casual. It sends a shiver down her spine as she watches the flame touch Bela's gaunt face with warmth. Gold flickering in her irises.

Cigarette lit, Bela begins to pace. The kitchen is too small for her to take more than four paces in any one direction, and so she stalks back and forth, forth and back, a tiger in a cage. Limping slightly, sparing her left leg. Anna watches, one hand reaching for the Dictaphone.

"I didn't tell anyone about the sting. You can think I'm just another criminal, a stupid little whore, I'm done caring. But I didn't tell anyone. And that's the truth."

"And you didn't get in touch with me because …"

Bela shoots her a scathing glance. "Because I was a _little_ bit busy trying to stay ahead of Alastair."

Again the memory of Ruby Romano and the rest of the mutilated Jane and John Does that populate Homicide's cold case files. Anna takes a deep drag of her cigarette, taps ash onto sticky linoleum flooring. "Henrikson could have arranged –"

"I've been handling it," Bela snaps.

Which, presumably, was why she called Anna in the middle of the night practically hyperventilating. Of course. "Anyway. If you didn't tip Lilith off about the sting, who the hell did?"

"I don't know."

Anna exhales blue smoke, slaps a mosquito dead against the wall. "Convenient."

" _I don't know_." Bela stops mid-pace, stares at her. The hand not occupied with her cigarette fumbles compulsively at the neckline of her hoodie. "Unless your people fucked up and we were being watched –"

"We didn't. Ash Lester and Rufus Turner don't make fuck ups."

"Then the leak had to come from your side."

Anna is caught between laughter and taking a swing at her. "That's what you're going with? So who do you think the mole was? Me? Henrikson? _Dean_?"

Bela waves her cigarette, irritable, resumes her pacing. "No, obviously. Any idiot could see you're all _far_ too goody-two-shoes for that. I mean someone else in the PD. Someone higher up, one of Henrikson's bosses maybe, I don't know."

"Hm." Anna blows a smoke ring, watches the ghostly blue of the LED light turn it into a frozen halo. Thinks her way up the chain of command.

Then there's the guttural groan of a car engine from outside. From the alley at the foot of the yard. Bela freezes in place, staring out into the black night as though hypnotised. "It's him," she breathes. "It's _Alastair_."

Instantly Anna moves, stubbing out the tell-tale lightning bug of her cigarette, fumbling for the lantern's off-switch and plunging them into darkness. It's probably not Alastair, but just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. And she thinks one cop getting shot over this is enough.

The sound of a car door slamming. The sound of footsteps.

"He's coming for me, oh fuckfuckfuck, he's coming." Bela's lips are damp at Anna's ear, both her hands gripping Anna's left wrist like a lifeline, so hard she can feel the blood pulsing at every point of contact.

Slowly, Anna shuffles them backwards. Through the door into the hall. She pulls it closed behind them.

Outside, someone starts to hum. It's a baritone familiar to Anna from weeks listening to the wire, a tune familiar to her from her mother's Old Hollywood obsession. A Frank Sinatra song, of all the things. _Cheek to Cheek._

"Oh God, it's him," Bela whispers. She presses her forehead against Anna's shoulder, slumps, and for one moment Anna thinks she's fainted and they're both fucked. Then she steadies herself, takes her own weight again.

"Go," Anna tells her, as loud as she dare. "Get out of here. My car's around the block, wait for me there."

Bela just grips her arm even tighter. Her face is slack with fear, naked with it. She says nothing, seems beyond speech, beyond anything but clinging on to Anna.

It's a panic reaction, and knowing Alastair's MO, Anna can't blame her. But Anna can't take Alastair down while also trying to shepherd a terrified civilian, and that's just the facts. She wrenches herself free of Bela's grasp, shoves her. "Go," she hisses. "Move. _Now."_

For a moment Bela simply stares at her, mute save for the shallow pants of her breathing. Anna thinks, _oh shit, she's lost it_ , and then, thank God and the Devil and anyone who's listening, she turns and runs, her booted feet beating a tattoo on the floorboards.

"I know you're in there, Bela," Alastair says. He sounds calm, reasonable, and very close.

Hardly daring to breathe, Anna double-checks her Dictaphone. Reaches under her jacket for her gun.

"You've had your fun, but it's over now. Come out here like a good little girl and I might even make it quick." The sound of a door opening, catching on cracked linoleum. "Just one shot, put you down like your pretty cop boyfriend. Make me chase you?" Alastair laughs, deep and throaty.

He's so close. On the other side of the door. Anna clicks the safety off. A bead of sweat crawls down the side of her face.

"Well, then, I'll enjoy myself. You think what I did with Ruby was bad? Or that cocksucker Brady who thought he could rob us? You ain't seen nothing yet. Even Daddy won't recognise you when I'm through."

 Another laugh. He knows, Anna realises. He knows exactly what kind of man Richard Talbot was. She clenches her jaw, tastes the blood on her lip.

"Last chance, Bela. What's it gonna be?"

The doorknob twists. That's the signal.

Anna lets rage carry her forward. She kicks the door, every ounce of her weight behind it, cheap wood splintering, hinges ripping away from the frame. Momentum brings her and the door crashing down on Alastair like an avalanche.

He staggers, goes down and Anna with him. Together they hit the floor, breath knocked from both of them. Anna hears the heavy clatter of Alastair's gun bouncing off – off something – and then it goes off, and silencer or no silencer, the blast of it is deafening. Shards of plaster and wood rain down from the ceiling, and as Anna's pushing to her feet, Alastair is scrabbling on the floor, twisting and reaching for the gun.

She kicks him. In the chest. Hard. The impact shocks all the way up to the base of her spine. "Stay down! This is the police, motherfucker, stay the fuck down!"

In the dark she sees his eyes gleaming palely as he twists his neck to look over his shoulder. She sees him register the wide yawn of her Colt. She sees the fight drain out of him, limbs going still with surrender.

"Hands on the back of your head. Now."

The second he complies, she's on him. Knees on his arms, pinning him in place. Then she pulls the fastest holster-your-gun-and-cuff-the-perp routine she's ever done. When a set of silver bracelets are safe around Alastair's wrists and her pistol back in her hand, she stands up.

Alastair's gun is lying in the pathetic little pile of Bela's belongings. It's still warm with the ghost of his touch. Anna flicks on the safety, ejects the magazine and pockets it, tucks the pistol in the waistband of her jeans. Straightens up and stares at Alastair, face down on the grimy floor.

The flood of adrenaline is receding, which normally leaves Anna feeling drained and vaguely sick, nerves fuzzy with it. But in this moment, triumph is a heavy hot weight in her stomach, the best meal she's ever eaten.

Roughly she grabs the collar of Alastair's black button-down, yanks him up. "Let's go."

* * *

 

Bela's not waiting at the car.

She radios for back-up, and as Anna waits for the nearest patrol car to make their way over, she wonders why she's still surprised at the ability of that woman to vanish into smoke, leaving behind nothing but the aftertaste of her on Anna's tongue like a stolen cigarette.

* * *

* * *

 

"What in hell's name is going on? What am I doing here?"

She hadn't been called to the dockyards in years. Not since Lilith stopped her working on the street level and moved her onto bigger things. The warehouse was larger than she remembered, cavernous.

"Oh, don't worry, darling. Just need to ask you a few questions."

Bela tugged her coat tighter around her. It was below freezing outside, spring was slow this year, and Alastair brought a wind chill factor all of his own. "I thought Lilith would be here. That's what the page said."

"Mm, she's a little busy right now, so I'm handling things. Are you gonna be a good girl and answer the questions?" His smile was solicitous. Like he rather hoped the answer would be _no_.

She lifted her chin. "Of course, but I still don't understand what's –"

"Just a little chat between friends. How are things with you and Ruby Romano these days?"

Bela blinked, nonplussed. Wondered for a moment, and picked the safest answer, if not the most truthful. "They're fine."

"Mm. So, you wouldn't have happened to notice if she was doing anything … _unusual_ , would you?"

"I don't know what you mean. She's always trying to cook peculiar things, but –"

Alastair took a step forward, putting him within arm's reach. Smiled at her, very slowly. "Unusual in terms of _work_ , my dear. Taking more than her fair share of cash, for instance?"

"Well, we don't really work together very much these days, so I don't exactly –"

"Answer the question, Bela."

"No. I haven't noticed anything like that." Her heart was going like a jackrabbit. It was below freezing but her palms were slick with sweat.

"Taking off a cut of the package? Keeping a few vials, a few grams for herself?"

"I – if she has, I don't know about it."

"You're sure, now? Sure she never mentioned –"

"No, no."

"No side ventures? No opportunities?"

"Nothing!"

"Think, now." He stroked her hair, tapped her lips with one finger like an admonishing parent. "Because if I find out you knew what your bitch was up to and you didn't tell me … well, we'll have some fun."

Alastair's expression didn't even pretend at being a smile and not a baring of teeth. They gleamed, hypnotic. Bela was shaking. Felt as though she were back in that bathroom, balancing on legs that couldn't hold her up while remorseless fingers squeezed her throat and spots danced across her vision. "I don't know anything. I don't."

"And you've never been tempted to try and do a little business on the side? To go behind Lilith's back?"

"No! No, no, I swear to God." She was going to faint. And then he would – what would he even do? "Never, I'd never –"

"That's enough."

She closed her mouth so fast her teeth clicked painfully together. Alastair ran his finger down her cheek, over her lips, along the curve of her neck. Lingered at the place where her pulse stuttered. She couldn't breathe, couldn't move. If she only had a gun.

"I believe you, dear." He smiled, patted her cheek, almost affectionate. "That's all."

Bela made it out of the warehouse and around the block before she had to lean against a wall and wait for the world to stop spinning. Jesus _Christ_.

She wasn't surprised when Ruby wasn't at the house. She let herself feel nothing but a deep numb certainty that that was it. That chapter of her life, over.

* * *

* * *

 

Under the fluorescent strip-lighting of Homicide Interrogation Room One, Alastair Rawls looks at once banal and the stuff of nightmares. A perp like any one of the hundreds who have been chained to this table before him, and the monster Anna knows he is.

Leaning back against the cool tiled wall, legs crossed at the ankle, she waits for Moreland to arrive. Outside, the Homicide night shift is in uproar, their voices a steady low roar like the sea. It's not just because of Dean. Even if the man in Room One hadn't put one of their own in the ICU, he'd still be the focus of every cop in the department.

There are some cases so bad they lodge in the hearts even of those who see murder up close every day of their lives. Ruby Romano was one of those.

She was also, along with Dean, one of Moreland's cases. The oldest, coldest case ever caught by Homicide's most experienced detective. It's why Anna's waiting for the man to get here and carry out the interrogation himself.

That, and she doesn't think she'd be able to keep her cool.

"You just gonna stare at me all night?" Alastair's smiling at her, grey eyes dancing madly. Voice low and nasal and intimate, insinuating its way under her skin. "Too much of a frigid cunt to take off the cuffs and let me give you what you need? Or is it you're just too much of a faggot?"

Anna stares him down. Doesn't give him anything. Studies the bones of his gaunt unshaven face, fascinatingly ugly in the harsh white light. Allows the taunts, the goads, to wash over her. Nothing she's not heard before, in school. From her cousins.

"Yeah, I know what you're about. Sniffing round after that Talbot bitch. Really something, isn't she?"

Anna blinks at him, slow and deliberate. Schools her face to smoothness. She knows what he's doing. Obvious really. He's been caught on tape confessing to the murders of Ruby Romano and Brady Castor, to the attempted murder of Dean Winchester. His best chance right now is provoking Anna into beating the living shit out of him – which, _Christ_ , she wants to – and Lilith's lawyer getting the case thrown out on grounds of police brutality.

"I mean, I can't believe you're still wet for her after she sold you out to us. Oh, she sang like a bird, she gave you up so easy. She always does, that little whore." He leans forward, conspiratorial, grinning crookedly. "Doesn't it _bother_ you, Officer? Knowing the whole city's been there before you? That you're having my sloppy seconds? Her _father_ 's?"

"Shut up." She moves with no awareness of moving. Just one moment to the next, she finds herself at the interrogation table. Palms flat against the cold metal surface. Leaning forward to snarl into Alastair's face. "Shut the fuck up."

"Aw, did I touch a nerve, Officer? Don't like thinking about your bitch and –"

The door opens at the same moment that Anna seizes Alastair by the throat. It's like having a bucket of ice water thrown over her, quenching the animalistic rage. Bringing her back to herself.

"Everything all right here?" Moreland's expression is mild, eyebrows raised, cigar hanging nonchalantly from his fingers. Certainly doesn't look like he got called out of his bed and into work at stupid o'clock in the morning to interrogate a serial murderer.

"Peachy." Anna turns her attention back to Alastair. Holding his gaze, she spits, deliberate, on the table. "I'll see you in court."

She lets the door slam on her way out.

* * *

* * *

 

The cops leave Bela waiting for a long time. It's more boring than anything else: she's quite sure they'll have nothing on her that Lilith's lawyers can't make disappear, and being alone in an interrogation room is far preferable to sitting downstairs in the cells. At least she can hear herself think.

When the door to the interrogation room opened and two cops walked in, Bela did a double-take. Blinked. She must be imagining things. Looked again. She's not.

The first of the cops was a tall man who looked younger than Bela, ridiculously pretty. His partner was a sad-faced, red-headed woman that she would swear was the policewoman who arrested her all those years ago. She'd swear it.

The boy sat down across the table from Bela. The woman remained standing, leaning against the wall, arms crossed.

"I want a lawyer."

"You're not under arrest, Abigail," the woman told her. And yes – God, it's that same voice. All the hairs on the back of Bela's neck stood on end. That voice.

"My name is Bela," she snapped.

The boy glanced at the woman, who shrugged. "Bela, then. We want to ask a few questions, that's all."

Bela said nothing, just stared at them both.

"You work for Lilith Devine, correct?" The boy laid a manila folder on the table, flipped through a set of papers.

"I'm Ms Devine's personal assistant, and I assure you she'll have something to say about this."

The boy smiled at her, all teeth. "We'd love to hear anything Lilith has to say, believe me."

Behind him, the woman chuckled softly. Bela shifted in her seat, eyes flicking from one of them to the other. There was something more going on here, something she wasn't prepared for, something they'd never anticipated.

"And you've worked for her for – how long?"

"Four years." Four years since she graduated from handling cash and packages to handling bank accounts and paperwork. Primarily, at least.

"How do you find Lilith Devine, as a boss?"

What the hell was this interrogation? Bela shrugged, kept her tone neutral. "She's a boss. Can be demanding, but she looks after her people."

The woman's eyes flicked up at that, caught Bela's gaze for a moment that felt like an eternity. Then she glanced away, fingers tapping against the wall.

"Well, that's nice." The boy pursed his lips, flicked through the file. Said, casually, "Do you know anyone by the name of Ruby Romano?"

It felt like being slapped in the face. Bela tried to bring her hand up to run through her hair, couldn't. Cuffed to the damn table. "Can I have a cigarette?"

"No. Answer the question."

"I knew her. I was a teenager, down on my luck, she helped me out. I crashed at her house for a while." She'd lied and lied and lied throughout her life, but they rarely cost her as dear as that one.

"I see. And the last time you saw Ruby was …"

Bela set her teeth. "A few years ago. I can't remember."

"Really."

She glared at him. Smug bastard. "Really."

"She disappeared, in fact, didn't she? Nearly five years ago." He pulled a piece of paper from the file, held it up. A photocopied flyer, with a grainy shot of Ruby, grinning, under the headline _MISSING_. "Her sister posted these all over the city. You don't remember that?"

Bela said nothing. Of course she remembered. That stupid bitch and her stupid flyers. It took her six months to understand that no one could help her, that all she was doing was putting herself and everyone else in danger.

The boy glanced over his shoulder at his partner, shrugged. "Hey, maybe they weren't that close. Still, your housemate goes missing, that tends to stick in the memory …"

If he thought that was getting a response, he had another think coming. Bela was better than that. Better than any fresh-off-the-runway police mouthbreather.

"But they weren't just housemates. Were you?" The woman this time, brows arched high. Her eyes were fixed on Bela's. "You both worked for Lilith then, didn't you? Part of her drug dealing operation."

"I don't know anything about that."

"You don't know much, do you?" The boy again. "I suppose you don't know that Ruby Romano was found dead, either? She was floating on the water by the dockyards and it took the PD a long time to identify her, but it was her alright."

Her mask didn't falter. It didn't. This was no less than what she'd expected. No less than what she'd known must have happened.

And yet she'd hoped.

"Do you know why it took so long to identify her? Who am I kidding, of course you don't. Here, take a look at this." The boy drew a sheet of glossy photo paper from the file. Slid it over the table toward her.

Bela looked. Despite herself, she looked. Felt the earth lurch beneath her, her stomach rolling and clenching. Vision going blurry. God, god, god. It had to be some fucked-up trick by the cops. Some mindgame. Because it could not be her. That could not be the beautiful girl she'd shared her bed with – all mutilated and torn and – her face, where was her _face_ –

"Hell of a retirement program Lilith has, huh?" It would have been better if the boy had just sneered it. Then she could have hated him and cursed him and wrapped herself in a shield of loathing. But he sounded sad. He sounded _sad_ , god damn him.

The handcuffs had just enough give for her to reach the photo and with trembling hands flip it over to lie face-down.

The boy turned it back over. Kept his fingers on it so she couldn't move it. "She was doing deals on the side. Trying to split off from Lilith, run her own show. We got a tip-off a while back, said the perp was a man named Alastair Rawls, an associate of Lilith's. Do you know him? Of course not. Anyway, we've never been able to make it stick. Son-of-a-bitch is still out there."

"Can I – a cigarette –"

"There's something else you need to know about." It was the woman's voice, cool and calm and unstoppable. "Did you know Lilith's involved in people trafficking? Women, girls, bringing them in from Eastern Europe mostly?"

Bela shook her head dumbly. Tried to breathe. It wasn't cold but she was shivering, shivering.

"Well, she is. Few months ago we found a shipping container in the dockyards with thirteen dead girls in it. Sent here for her people to pick up. Their air pipe got crushed in transit."

A pause. Bela was staring fixedly at the photograph of Ruby. She wanted to put her eyes out but she knew she'd still be seeing it, even blinded. Even dead.

"Show her the photos, Winchester."

The boy, hushed: "Anna, you sure? She's looking kinda –"

"Show her."

More glossy paper spread out before her. A pile of bodies, blue-faced and bloated awfully. Bela felt cold sweat beading at her temples, across her brow.

"The youngest," the woman said quietly, "the youngest of them was fifteen. Same age you were when we met."

Bela rocked forward involuntarily, back arching with as she dry retched painfully.

"Aw, _fuck_ -"

A scrabble of feet and then she was being freed from the cuffs, pulled around and a metal waste paper bin shoved before her. Not a moment too soon. She threw up in a great violent heave that left her cold and weeping. She closed her eyes and pressed fingers to her throbbing temples.

The door opened and clicked shut.

"I guess Lilith didn't tell you about every pie she has her fingers in." The woman cop. Her hand was steady on Bela's shoulder. An anchor in the spinning world.

The door again. The boy pushed a paper cup of water into her hands. Bela drank. It went a little way toward washing the caustic taste from her mouth. A little way.

"Still think Lilith looks after her people?"

She lost her nerve. Crunched the paper cup in her fists, found herself screaming, "What do you want from me? Jesus Christ, what do you want? I hate her, I wish I'd never met her, is that what you fucking want to hear?"

"We want your help," the boy said. She was gratified to see tension in his face, a tight focus that hadn't been there before. If they'd been playing with her before, they weren't now.

"My help." Bela snorted, shook her head. "Why the fuck should I help you?"

The woman crouched down in front of Bela's chair. She pulled a packet of cigarettes from her jacket, shook one out, lit it and offered it to Bela, who took it. It was an obvious ploy, but she needed a smoke like she never had before. Those bloody photos.

"Because we are going to bring Lilith to justice." Her eyes snapped up to meet the policewoman's steady gaze. That pale face was composed, hazel eyes absolutely sincere and absolutely intent. As if she were trying to stare right down into Bela's soul. "If you want the killings to stop, if you want to be something more than what Lilith made you - this is the way out. Help us."

Bela stared at her, mute. Caught between the fear of what might happen if she tried to overthrow ten years of the status quo, and the grinding dull horror of what would certainly happen if she _didn't_.

"Well, think on it." The boy held out a business card. His partner reached back over her shoulder to take it, produced one of her own, pressed them both into Bela's sweaty palm. She glanced down: _Detective Dean Winchester. Detective Anna Milton._ Two cellphone numbers.

Anna Milton straightened up, all casual lean strength. Crossed to the door and held it open. "You're free to go, Bela."

* * *

* * *

 

"- when I say a case is closed, the case is closed! When I say a unit is disbanded, the unit is disbanded! _Chain of command_. Do either of you even understand what that means?"

"Yes, Commissioner."

"Yes, ma'am." Anna can't match Henrikson's inscrutable calmness. Can't quite keep the seething resentment from her face and her voice. It's all she can do to stop herself from answering back, from telling Naomi Bell _exactly_ what she thinks of her.

This would be why Henrikson's an officer and Anna's not.

"So if you _do_ understand, Lieutenant, why is one of your people running off on her own _against direct orders_? You are either deliberately undermining everything this department is trying to achieve, or you are the most outstandingly incompetent officer I have _ever_ had the privilege of knowing. Which is it?"

Beside Anna, Henrikson opens his mouth and then closes it again. Glances at her out the corner of his eye. Some commanding officers Anna's known – almost all of them, in fact – would immediately have thrown her to the lions, told Naomi that Anna went rogue, disavowed her completely to save themselves.

"Well? Speak up, Lieutenant."

Before Henrikson can get a word out, Anna says, "Ma'am, Henrikson didn't know what I was planning. I didn't tell anyone. The fault is mine."

The Commissioner rakes her piercing gaze over Anna, head to toe. "Lieutenant, is this true?"

Anna presses her fingernails into the pad of her palm. Wills Henrikson not to go all stupid and chivalrous on her.

After the briefest of hesitations, he says stiffly, "It is."

Naomi leans over her desk, intent. She never raises her voice, but her blue eyes are throwing off sparks, and her face is a mask, cold and rigid. Other top brass might scream and swear and throw things at the walls, but not the Commissioner. She doesn’t need to. "I see. Consider yourself restricted to desk duty, if you think yourself capable of not embarking on any further personal vendettas."

"Yes ma'am." The words are forced out from between her teeth.

"Good." Naomi sits down, lifts her hands. "Get out of my sight, both of you."

* * *

 

All the way out of the Commissioner's office, along the corridor, down in the elevator and out of the PD headquarters, Henrikson and Anna keep in silent step with each other. As soon as they're outside, blinking in the glare of the white midday sky, Henrikson lets out a string of fluent curses, and Anna swipes a vicious kick at the nearest wall. Too hard. She feels a toe crunch.

While she's hopping and trying to shake feeling back into her foot, Henrikson rounds on her. "What the fuck were you thinking, Milton? What the _fuck_?"

"I was thinking it's the job of the police to bring in sons of bitches like Alastair Rawls! Goddammit, Henrikson, you're the one who told us not to give up on this fucking case, what the fuck is your problem?" Her voice is rising uncontrollably, driven by too much coffee and not enough sleep and weeks of guilt eating her alive.

Part of her – a large part of her – wants Henrikson to react in kind. Wants the catharsis of a good old-fashioned screaming match. But of course he just steps closer to her, holds her gaze. Voice raised but measured. "You should have called me, or Rufus Turner. For all you knew you were walking your ass right into another set-up."

"I wasn't –"

"Anna." He takes another step closer, and in his normally unreadable face she can suddenly see naked emotion. That, and the use of her first name, shocks her into silence. "You're alive because of sheer dumb luck. If Alastair had brought back-up, you'd be in a fucking body-bag right now. And all for nothing. Yeah, you did good bringing Alastair in, hell yeah. But if it means another of my people getting shot?" A bark of a laugh, harsh. "Not worth it."

Anna closes her eyes. "Yeah. I know."

"You and Dean are close, this is personal for you, I get that. But you're not the only who's got a stake in this."

"I know." The back of her eyelids are glowing burnt-gold in the sunlight. "I should have called for back-up. I fucked up." She opens her eyes, looks over at Henrikson. "I'm sorry."

After considering her for a moment, he nods acceptance. "And Talbot? She's in the wind again?"

Anna's gut twists. She runs her tongue over the scabbed-over cut on her lip. "Yes. I had to – I couldn't deal with Alastair while she was there, she was losing her shit."

"And she claimed that Lilith is hunting her down for informing?" At Anna's nod, Henrikson passes a hand down over his face. "Do you believe her?"

"I –" Anna hesitates. Trust Henrikson to go straight for the million dollar question. She shuffles in place, fishes in her pocket for a pack of cigarettes. Lights up and takes a deep breath of calming blue smoke and realises she knows the answer. "Yeah. I think I do."

When she looks over, she sees Henrikson watching her with eyes narrowed and lips pursed. It's an expression she's seen when he's listening to her and Dean filling him in on the previous night's evidence, or Rufus and Ash outlining a new strategy. "What?"

Flatly, Henrikson says, "You're in love with her, aren't you?"

Anna does a double-take. Tries for nonchalance, a laugh, a careless toss of her hair. Lifts her cigarette to her lips with trembling fingers. She can't speak. Can't quite find the words.

They stand there, two feet apart on the grimy sidewalk, sweating under the beat of the sun. A long long silence. The only authority figure she's never wanted to disappoint, and she's let him down so badly.

Finally, Henrikson says, "Well, it's never boring with you, is it?" That gets a laugh out of Anna despite it all, and he shakes his head sardonically. "Jesus, what a mess."

Which, yeah, about covers it.

* * *

* * *

 

As it turned out, the taskforce of police trying to put Lilith behind bars was little more than a ragtag band of misfits.

The head cop, Henrikson, seemed competent enough, and Anna Milton – well, Bela trusted her, even if she did her best not to think about _why_. Then there was Winchester, who looked like he ought to be playing a cop on television instead of being one for real, and spent most of the time chattering away with a guy who could have wandered out of a 1980s heavy metal concert but was apparently their techie. The final cop, Rufus Turner, was a scrawny and intensely sarcastic older guy. He watched Bela out of the corners of his eyes constantly, suspiciously, which was fine by her. Anyone who trusts her wasn't worth trusting not to fuck this up.

They talked for what seemed like an eternity. Bela sat in her chair, sheepskin wrapped tight around her – they were in a basement, draughty and damp – listened to them sketch out their plans. Offered her opinion when asked. All the while running the mental calculus she'd relied on since she was a child: _is this safe? Can this work? Do I have an exit strategy? Is this safe?_

And then, after Anna Milton had outlined her first scheme, Henrikson leaned in and said, kindly, "Are you prepared to do that? The last thing we want is to put you in a dangerous situation by being too ambitious."

And Bela thought, abruptly, _fuck you_. She brought her chin up. "I'm in a dangerous situation just being here. And I don't think you're being ambitious enough. If I'm going to risk my life, I want to do something more than just photocopying a few papers."

"You heard the lady, boss." Anna Milton spread her hands, grinning. Triumphant. Obviously a long-running dispute.

Henrikson drew himself up, about to retort, and Winchester cut in, "C'mon, man. Refuge in audacity."

"Fortune favours the brave," Bela said, and got a sceptical smirk from Rufus Turner and a look from Anna Milton that made her heart do a quick two-step.

"Well, if that's the way you want to play it," Henrikson said, and held up his hands in surrender.

After that, the meeting seemed to come to a natural end. Night had fallen while they'd been talking, a heavy winter night with a breeze that cut right through Bela's coat. And with it, reality. The understanding of what it was she had agreed to do. What would happen to her if Lilith ever, _ever_ found out –

"Hey, Bela, you okay?"

It was Anna Milton, her hand light on Bela's shoulder. In the sodium-yellow light of the streetlamps, her red hair seemed to burn like a wreath of flame. She had faint laughter lines at the corners of her eyes.

Bela tossed her hair back, smiled her best, most arrogant smile. "Oh, I'm fine, sweetheart."

"You're doing the right thing," Anna said. Her gaze was steady on Bela, so intent.

"I'm not doing it for you," Bela snapped, but it sounded like a lie.

* * *

* * *

 

Rufus Turner insists they go to the Roadhouse to celebrate Alastair finally being arrested. Coming up on two days without sleep, Anna initially goes along just to humour the old man. Then Ash buys her a double espresso and Ellen produces a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label from under the bar, and that's that.

At some point after Ash falls off of the table he was dancing on and is led out and poured into a taxi by a hugely amused Pamela Barnes, Rufus corners Anna at the end of the bar. Squints at her, astute and way more sober than he has any right to be.

"Okay, Milton, spill it."

"What?" She blinks at him, startled out of a reverie.

An exasperated roll of the eyes. "You brought in Alastair Rawls with a confession on tape. You oughta be singing from the rooftops, girl, not sat here glaring at your drink like it insulted your sainted mother. What's going on? And don't tell me it's because the Commissioner bitched you out, 'cause I know you get a kick outta winding up the top brass."

"Can’t put anything past you, huh?" She rubs at her eyes, lifts the heavy fall of her hair away from the back of her sweaty neck. It's too hot in here, even with the ceiling fans going at full tilt. "Okay, so this doesn't go any further than us, yeah?"

Rufus nods, his face still and serious. He signals Ellen for another drink, and angles his body so as to shield them both and their conversation from view.

"Bela Talbot called me last night, that was how I ended up finding Alastair." Anna spins her glass slowly between her palms. Watches, fascinated, as the bubbles rise up through the dark rum-and-coke, glinting like jewels. She's not drunk, not really, but the alcohol and the caffeine and the exhaustion are mingling in her bloodstream and she cannot help but get lost in the details, the flow of bubbles, the grain of the wooden bar, the memory of Bela's gaunt face.

"She set you up? Or she gave you a tip-off?"

"She called me because he was after her. Hunting her. I drove out to where she was crashing, and we –" Anna draws a breath at the thought of the collision of that kiss they'd shared," – we talked for, like, five minutes. And then he showed up, Bela split, and I got the bastard in bracelets."

"Could still have been a set-up," Rufus says. He's got a shot glass in his fingers, but he's paying it no mind, all his attention on Anna.

"Turner, you didn't see her. She was practically hysterical when he showed up. She was losing her mind."

"Hm." He nods, slowly. Dark eyes still steady on her, focused. "Go on."

"Yeah … So, what Bela told me was that someone ratted her out to Lilith, and that Alastair was going after her because they knew she was an informant. She said she never told them about the sting, and that had to come from somewhere else."

For a long moment, Rufus doesn't say anything. Doesn't even react. Just looks at Anna, maddeningly calm, then tosses back his whiskey. "And what do you make of that?"

"What do _you_ make of it?" For all that he's been buried for years in the Pawnshop Unit, Rufus Turner is as sharp a detective as Anna has ever known. Major Crimes wouldn't have gotten off the ground without him.

He shrugs, says, "I could buy it. Now I always told you not to trust Talbot further than you could throw her, and I stand by that. She is one sly broad, but she's got a head on her shoulders. And you don't live through what she did without a sense for self-preservation, right?"

"Right." She can still remember that teenage girl, hiding her white face with thin hands as she cried. Anna hadn't been able to save her then.

Rufus leans in a little closer, raises one finger, a point. "Talbot wanted out of Lilith's op. And she had to know, once you talk to the police, once you snitch, there is nothing – _nothing_ – you can tell Lilith that won't end in you in a fucking city morgue." He shakes his head, holds up his glass for a refill. "Scared people do some crazy shit, but no one stood to lose more than Talbot if Lilith was tipped off to us."

When Anna doesn't respond, he raises an eyebrow. "You disagree?"

"I – no." The stale smell of that vacant house, the pile of grease-stained empty takeout boxes, Bela's unwashed clothes and hollowed cheeks: Anna has an all-too clear picture of the way Bela must have been living for the last few weeks. Bela, who loved and craved luxury and security as only one who had to fight for every bit of it can. "I think you're right. She didn't betray us."

Saying the words feels like letting out a breath she didn't know she was holding.

"Yeah. So did Talbot have any idea who _did_?"

Anna hesitates, then bites her lip and goes ahead. "Someone within the Department, one of Henrikson's superiors."

Rufus grins, mirthless. More a baring of teeth than anything else. "Well, that's a theory."

"You two look awful serious, what's going on?" Ellen appears, takes Rufus's glass and refills it. She gives Anna a look both stern and concerned, and Anna can feel her cheeks flushing. God, she made a fool of herself last time she was at the Roadhouse.

Very casually, as though it's nothing, Rufus tells her, "Oh, Milton thinks the top brass is dirty."

"Say it ain't so." Ellen leans forward, elbows propped up on the bar. "Any idea who?"

Anna shakes her head. The names of a few possibles are circling in her mind, but nothing concrete, no one certain. And if there were, she wouldn't tell Ellen. Not that she doesn't trust the woman – just that the fewer people caught up in this, the better.

"You want my advice?" Rufus Turner raises a finger again, clears his throat. For all the world like a pompous college professor. " _Follow the money_. You can chase around dealers and mobsters and informants all you like, and you'll find drugs and bodies. But take it from me, the money? The paper trail? That's the only way you'll find the _real_ dirt."

Before Anna can respond, Ellen lets out a long low whistle. "Rufus Turner, I thought you gave this shit up. Never thought I'd see the day you'd be up to your old tricks again." The words could be a reprimand, but the tone is one of affection. Of pride.

"Guess I just never learn," Rufus mutters, draining his glass again.

"Okay, I'll bite, what're you guys talking about?" Anna asks. There's a story here, a good one. Or at least one worth knowing.

Ellen smirks when Rufus groans. "Go on, tell her your old war story, Turner. It's one she ought to know, anyway."

"Alright, already. Get me another drink, and I will." Rufus shifts on his barstool, eyes closed as he collects his thoughts. The old man's kept his cards close to his chest all the time Anna's known him, never let a thing slip about his past in all the months they've been working in the MCU together. She can't help but listen with baited breath as he begins.

"So, when I was round about your age, Milton, the PD had an anti-Mafia unit. Kind of the granddaddy of Major Crimes, except with less fancy toys and even less funding. I got sick of doing nothing but pointless street arrests over some bullshit – you know how that is – and I joined up. Did some damn good work, if I say it myself."

"I'm sure you did," Anna says, grinning, and he rolls his eyes at her.

"Everyone's a critic. Anyway – me and a few others, we were after this particular son-of-a-bitch, name's not important. Had a lot of folks murdered back in the day, did a hell of a lot of drug smuggling, people trafficking, fingers in all the pies. We get to following his paper trail, where the money's going, because our guy was way too clever to have cash money just lying about in suitcases, oh no. Sends it off into real estate, front companies, all that shit. Tracking it all down was the best police work I ever did." Rufus nods contemplatively, sips at his whiskey.

"So what happened?" Anna prompts.

He gives her a smile, tight with cynical humour. "We tie off all the loose ends, take the case upstairs to the Colonel in charge of the unit. He reads through the files and –" Rufus snaps his fingers, so loud Anna startles. "- it's over. See, we had a list of names that were on all the front companies and such, men who were profiting off it all. One of them? Son of the Mayor."

"Oh, fuck."

"Yeah, you got it. Colonel told us nothing doing. Keep our mouths shut like good boys or –" Rufus draws a finger across his throat and makes a loud choking noise. "So, of course we go away and Bobby Singer – he was a Major then – starts pulling all the strings he can, calling everyone he knows, trying to get some momentum behind the thing. The rest of us keep on at it. Then the Deputy Commissioner found out. And, well," he chuckles, bitter, "all hell broke loose. Mafia unit shut down. Singer bounced right back down to traffic detail. I'm buried behind a desk in Pawnshop. But Bill Harvelle, rest his soul, and John Winchester –"

"Wait, _Winchester_ as in -?"

Rufus nods. "Yeah. Reckon Dean's kid brother had just been born about then. This was before the man went deadbeat." His lip curls, contemptuous. No _rest his soul_ for John Winchester. "So he and Bill threaten to leak the info. Get the papers on the story. Deputy Commish says if they do, they'll be out on their ear, no severance pay, no pension. Bill saw reason. John didn't. Tried leaking, but he'd got bounced out on dishonourable discharge which kinda shoots your credibility, and the Mayor bought off the papers. Our guy walked, scot-free. Round about a year later, Bill was shot, and let me tell you, that was no coincidence." He drains his glass. Bangs it back down on the bar. "You could say I got history with dirty cops."

"I'll say," Anna mutters. She passes a hand down over her face, tries to keep her breathing steady. "The leak, it had to have come from real high up. No-one else knew any details about what we were doing."

"Right." Leaning forward, Turner prods her in the collarbone with one pointed finger. "So what you've gotta decide, Milton, is d'you think this case is worth it? Me, I'm an old man, I got nothing left to lose. But you? You need to think long and hard on this shit."

Without waiting for a reply, he stands up. Pats her once on the shoulder, his hand heavy and cool through Anna's blouse, and walks away, vanishing into the rowdy Saturday-night crowd.

Lost for words, Anna just stares after him. A headache starting to beat on the insides of her temples. She thinks she can feel the earth revolving beneath her feet, spinning so fast, relentless, and she just wants it to stop. She wants to leave, to run away from everything and sleep and sleep and sleep.

With perfect clarity, she thinks, _I don't know what to do_.

"Anna. Here." Ellen pushes a glass of iced water into her hands, prickling with heat. The Roadhouse is busy, and her bartenders could use a helping hand, but she makes no move to leave, just holds Anna's gaze, steady. A fixed point. "I'm not gonna tell you what to do, but I got eyes in my head and I can tell, this thing has been eating you alive. And after my Bill gave up that case … it damn near killed him. Even _before_ he got shot. So you do what you have to. You do what's right by your lights and to hell with everyone else. You hear what I'm saying?"

Anna palms the glass, presses it to her sweaty forehead. The simple physical relief of it is so profound she lets out her breath in one great exhale. "Yeah, I hear you, Ellen. I'll try."

Ellen Harvelle's smile – her true one, not her sardonic grin or her teasing smirk or the practiced smile she wears to greet patrons – is a rare thing. It breaks slowly over her face, a little worn and a little weary, but like the Roadhouse, beautiful for it. "You'll do fine, kiddo. You'll do fine."

* * *

* * *

 

The bug Ash gave her was the tiniest, tiniest thing. It sat in the centre of Bela's palm, no longer than her thumbnail, matte black plastic. She could barely feel its weight, except in her mind.

"Don't get your hopes up," she said to Winchester. "Lilith won't say anything incriminating in the office. She's not a mouthbreather like you."

While Winchester rolled his eyes, Ash said brightly, "Yeah, we figured. We're playing the long game here, sister."

"Brilliant. And what exactly is that supposed to mean?"

Ash shrugged expansively. "Guess we see what we can see."

Winchester cut in, "We listen for who she's meeting with, get an idea of her schedule, who her friends are. Then we know where to look next. But yeah, Ash is right. This ain't gonna be a walk in the park, we're in for a long haul."

"You don't say."                                                                   

Arms folded across his chest, Winchester said, not aggressive but definitely challenging, "Talbot, you in or what?"

Bela ran the pad of her thumb along the bug. Part of her wished she could drop it, stamp on it till her boots ground it to smithereens, hurl it away from her and pretend she'd never seen it. Never entertained this insane notion. Go back to her apartment, go back to Lilith, sleep safe on her silk sheets. God, she wanted that so much.

And yet all that would achieve would be a slower death. Suffocating a little more every day she pasted a smile over the cracks of her fear and rage.

Gently, she closed her fist around the bug, cradling it. Met Winchester's eyes. Told him, "You bring Lilith down. As long as you keep your side of the bargain, I'll keep mine."

* * *

* * *

 

The next morning Anna wakes up to the sounds of the city: birds singing, and the low rumble of slow-moving traffic, and the practiced shouts of street vendors. Drunk, she had forgotten to close her curtains last night – this morning? – and her bedroom is full of light, motes of dust circling slowly in the stream of sun pouring in through the window.

She pulls on an oversized t-shirt. Makes her way around the mounds of discarded books and magazines and clothes that litter her bedroom floor, opens the window and leans out over her tiny balcony. There's a breeze this morning, playing in her loose hair and whipping over her bare legs, a refreshing break from the humidity of summer. Anna lights up her first cigarette of the day, watches people rush by below her. The taxi driver sticking his head out of his cab to yell at the asshole who cut him up. The harried office workers clutching coffee cups and briefcases. The hotdog seller who knows Anna on sight and always calls her Red. The busker with her shitty guitar and voice of gold.

Christ, Anna loves this city.

When her cigarette is done, she ducks back inside and roots through the pile of yesterday's clothes until she finds her cell phone. Scrolls through her contacts until she finds Rufus Turner's number.

He picks up on the third ring. " _What_."

Anna shakes her head, grinning. God forbid the man sound pleased to hear from anyone. "So if we're gonna do this, we need to do it properly."

" _You think I'm in the habit of doing things by halves, you got another think coming, Milton_."

She's pretty sure she's not imagining the smile in his voice. "Yeah, yeah." Leaning back on her bed, she stretches out her legs, rotates her ankles. "And until we've got solid evidence, it stays between us, agreed?"

" _No point in torpedoing anyone else's career."_

"Right." Lieutenant Henrikson would help them, would back them up, she's certain of it. He's their commanding officer and he'd go down with his goddamn ship if they let him. There are some people who do their best working from within the system, keeping to the rules and making them work the way they are supposed to do.

Then there are people like Anna.

"So, how shall we split it? You go through the paperwork for all the old arrests, I'll start with the money laundering …?"

* * *

 

She's competent with computers, with the paperwork side of detective work, would have said more than competent except she's seen Ash Lester do his thing. But always, always given the choice, Anna would rather be out of the office, on the streets. She even used to find redeeming features in pulling fourteen-hour solo stakeout shifts. It always just feels that much more _real_. Something she can dig her teeth into. And without that feeling, she's never been able to just power away, focus every inch of her mind and soul at the work.

Until now.

Now, she gets it. She understands completely the drive that sustains Ash and Rufus through the countless all-nighters they’ve both pulled hunting Lilith.

The numbers and the names and the dates scroll past over her computer screen, down printouts requested from City Hall, scrawled on sticky notes and notepad after notepad. A spiderweb of information she's navigating by touch alone. From time to time she'll send a text to Turner – _could you check up on such-and-such –_ or receive one in turn – _this name ringing any bells –_ and every time she feels the strands of the web twitch beneath her fingertips.

It's there. The identity of the mole is there. Just beyond her reach. Tantalising. Compelling.

She loses track of time. Finally gets up from her desk when her vision is blurring so bad she can't read the words on her computer screen. Makes her way into her kitchen to grab an apple and start her coffee machine.

When the espresso is sitting warm in her stomach, Anna takes a deep breath and calls Bela before she can talk herself out of it.

The phone rings and rings and rings, and then goes through to voicemail.

"Hi – Bela, it's me. I wanted to say – I wanted to talk to you. Alastair's in jail right now, he won't be getting bail, and – listen. Bela. About the leak. I'm working on it. I'm working on who it is. So just sit tight, keep your head down, I'm gonna figure this one out. And please, let me know if you're safe. Okay? I –"

The bleep of the voicemail cuts her off.

Anna stares at the cellphone in her hand, unseeing. Hopes to God that Bela was busy or distracted or just letting her go to voicemail to see what she had to say for herself. Not – well. Not anything else.

How afraid she must be. Crashing in another vacant, without even her LED light or the backpack of her meagre belongings. Anna can see her, clear as day in her mind's eye, terrified blue eyes staring out of a gaunt face, taut with fear. Alone. Maybe thinking Anna's abandoned her, left her –

But alive.

Anna closes her eyes, breathes deep. Reminds herself that Alastair Rawls is in solitary down at the city jail. His confession on tape. That she got to Bela first. That in spite of all the ways Anna has failed to protect Bela, failed to save her, she did this. Kept her from becoming another Ruby.

And when she and Turner find out who the leak is – she doesn't allow herself to hope. Can't think of the future. She needs to keep her head in the game, and she sure as hell can't do that while she's lost in the thought of Bela, Bela, _Bela_.

"Okay. Okay." Anna rotates shoulder-blades stiff and aching from hours bent over her desk, stretches, and goes back to work.

* * *

* * *

 

After the close shave with Meg Masters, they'd decided Bela shouldn't come to the Major Crimes headquarters again. Which was how she ended up sitting next to Anna Milton in an underground bar, sipping a Long Island Iced Tea.

"Well, you certainly do clean up nicely." It's true: in skintight grey jeans, black motorcycle boots and a white tank top, Anna's redhead-pale skin seemed to glow, her hair a tousled mass falling halfway down her back.

"Flattery'll get you nowhere," Anna said and gave Bela a glare. The impression was somewhat spoilt by the blush spreading across her high cheekbones.

The bartender turned back to them with Anna's whiskey. She took it, pushed a handful of crumpled bills across the sticky top of the bar, and turned to face Bela.

One elbow propped on the bar, long toned legs crossed lazily at the ankle, all lean muscle and wiry strength. It was pure instinct that had Bela pushing her hair back from her face, shifting to feel the silk falls of her midnight-blue dress rippling over her skin. When she saw the look on Anna's face, lips slightly parted, those changeable hazel eyes dark and smoky, she felt a smile breaking slow over her lips. Electricity buzzing beneath her skin in a way it hadn't since Ruby.

"Shall we get down to business?" Bela said, throatily, and laughed aloud at the way Anna stuttered and fumbled her response.

After a moment, Anna grinned and then let herself laugh along. "Very good," she said wryly. Raised her whiskey glass in an ironic toast, and drained it. "Okay, seriously though. Let's talk about Masters."

"Let's."

When they left, it was the small hours of the morning. New York City never sleeps, the cliché is true, but the bar was a little out of the way, and it was quiet. Just them on the pavement in the cool of night.

"You'll be fine getting home?"

Bela rolled her eyes at Anna. "I think I can handle myself, thank you, dear."

Anna, three drinks down, just enough to be looser at the edges, nudged Bela with her denim-jacketed shoulder. "Just trying to look after you, so sue me."

Just for a moment, Bela lost her balance in her heels. Anna caught her by the waist and arm to steady her, and there they were. Staring into each other's eyes, faces only inches apart.

The quietness, the darkness, it felt like a dream. It was the easiest thing in the world for Bela to curl her fingers into the collar of Anna's jacket and reach up to press their lips together. The softest, gentlest kiss of her life.

"This is a bad idea," Anna breathed when they parted. But her hands were firm and steady, curled around Bela's bicep, strong at the small of her back. Her lips parted against a sigh when Bela brushed a stray red curl away from her face.

"You don't want to? You don't feel this?"

"You know that's not what I mean. It's not – there's about ten thousand rules why –"

"I didn't think you gave a damn about rules." All those meetings, Winchester's exasperated eye-rolling and Henrikson's lectures, all of Anna's stories told over a beer or a coffee. She might be a cop, but she was sure as hell no jolly-hockeysticks-goody-two-shoes. No more than Bela had ever been.

"I could turn over a new leaf," Anna said, but even as she was saying it she was leaning in to kiss Bela once again.

* * *

* * *

 

The next day Anna has to actually go into work. Not that she can do much in the way of police work now that the Commissioner has her confined to desk duty, but that's all for the best. She makes a great show of rolling her eyes and chafing at the bit, no Homicide detective appreciates being locked up like a house cat, but inside she's whistling.

She spends the day combing through the financial records of Lilith's known front companies, chasing down the ones they don't know about. From time to time, one of the other detectives will call her, ask her to look up priors for a suspect, or if the victim has a record, whatever, and she does. Keeps up the act. Covers her desk with files from Homicide's archive in case any ranking officers walk by. It feels a little like being a teenager again, spending her evenings reading online erotica and message boards for queer women instead of doing her homework. Except with more murder and money laundering, obviously.

It's not until the night shift arrives, and Pamela Barnes asks her, eyebrows raised, "The hell are you still here for?" that Anna realises how late it's gotten.

Part of her wants to stay on – mainline caffeine and work until she passes out. But she's supposed to be flying under the radar with this, and she does have _some_ common sense. Contrary to popular opinion.

So she turns off the computer, sweeps the printouts and her notes into her backpack, and heads out. Hops on a bus and turns her face to the window, watches the city lights go by in a kaleidoscope whirl.

Sam Winchester's somewhere out there. So is Bela, hiding. Both of them waiting for justice, for safety.

Anna closes her eyes, feels the bus vibrating beneath her like the heartbeat of the city. Promises them silently, _I'm working on it._

She gets off the bus about a block away from her apartment building. Drops into her favourite all-night diner for a soda and a cream cheese bagel. As she walks out, someone calls to her, "Lady! Hey, lady, spare some change?"

Anna stops in her tracks. She's lived in New York all her life bar college, and she's more or less immune to panhandlers now, but that voice, that voice she knows.

Sure enough, there's Andy. Large as life, scruffy as ever, grinning lopsidedly at her.

Making a show of sighing and rolling her eyes, Anna reaches for her wallet. "How's tricks, Andy? Got any news for me, or just in the neighbourhood?"

He sniffs, rubs at his nose. "Yeah, I was hoping you'd show. Word is, Lilith's in hiding, and her people are –" he tries and fails to snap his fingers, "- well, they ain't around. Sounds like you got her on the ropes."

Anna stops leafing through her wallet, all her attention focused on the man in front of her. Andy's been her pet criminal informant for years, since she was in Vice, and she trusts him, but she has to be sure. Has to know. There's too much hanging in the balance. She gives him her best interrogation room stare. "You're saying she's shut up shop?"

"Seems like."

"And in hiding? What, you mean she's skipped town? Left the state?"

Andy shifts uneasily, bites at his lip. "I dunno, I … it's just what I've heard, man, you know I don't know all what she's doing, I just hear the rumours, listen out …"

"Yeah, I know. One more thing: you heard anything about a girl named Bela? Bela Talbot? Lilith's people looking for her or anything?"

He frowns. "Anna, I ain't never heard that name …"

Anna's head feels heavy with relief. She gives Andy a pair of rumpled twenties, and on second thoughts, the brown paper bag holding her bagel and soda too.

* * *

 

A text message, the next morning: _I'm safe._ And then another, on its heels. _Make sure you are, too._

Anna grins to see them.

* * *

* * *

 

Bela's stayed in luxury hotels and penthouse apartments and once in Lilith's own mansion down on Cape Cod, drunk champagne that costs hundreds of dollars a bottle, slept in beds that had honest-to-God lace curtains like something out of the Arabian Nights. She relished every second of it. And yet none of it compared to stealing into a cheap-and-cheerful motel with Anna Milton at her side.

As soon as the door clicked shut, they were kissing. Anna's arms wrapped around Bela's neck, pulling her close. Bela clutched at her hair, pulled it out of its sensible bun to run her fingers through it. Ran her hand up the arch of Anna's spine and back down. She'd been burning up to touch Anna, all through the carefully casual conversation with Ash Lester and Dean Winchester, aching for this. Going mad for it.

Not breaking the kiss for a moment, Anna gave her a little shove, pressing her backwards until they both tipped onto the bed. The sheets were plasticky and creaked when they were rumpled, a long way from four-star standards, and Bela didn't even care. She was far beyond paying attention to the woman kneeling up in front of her, yanking her black t-shirt over her head and tossing her bra aside to reveal miles and miles of freckle-spattered skin. When Bela sat up to pull Anna to her, kissing her way along Anna's jawline to bite and suckle high on her neck, hands roaming up and over her naked torso, desperate to touch every inch of her, Anna undid her blouse and pulled it off with quick clever fingers. Reached around to her back to undo her lace bra, stroked down over her sides, gently cupped her breasts.

"Don't you hold back on me," Bela breathed, and grabbed Anna's belt to grind their hips together. Her legs parted to straddle Anna's thigh, rough denim pressing against the thin lace of her knickers and grinding against the beat of blood at the centre of her.

She felt more than heard Anna's moan. "God. Fucking – you're gonna _kill_ me –"

Not so clever now, her fingers fumbled at the zipper of Bela's skirt, finally got it down. It took both of them to get it and Bela's underwear off, to leave her naked, kneeling up and kissing Anna: her mouth, her collarbones, her tight hard nipples. Pressing herself against Anna's hip, riding the strong line of her thigh with a rising tempo. And Anna's hands were everywhere. Stroking her, teasing her with the faintest scrape of fingernails. She mapped out Bela's spine, her belly, her thighs. Weighed the cheeks of her ass in her hands.

When Anna's fingers ghosted over her mound, scratching gently through her pubic hair, Bela grabbed at her wrist. Tried to tug her hand down, suddenly desperate for pressure, for fingers inside of her, now now now.

But Anna had too much strength in her wiry muscles and wouldn't be pulled. Kept on with that barely-there soft petting. She brushed her fingers over Bela's lips, pressed their foreheads together. "Shh, babe, we can go slow, you don't have to do anything, we can go slow, don't worry."

Anger flared through Bela's blood, bright and red and almost indistinguishable from her arousal. She brought both her hands up, shoved Anna's shoulders and used her own weight to send them tipping over, Anna landing sprawled on the bed with Bela on top.

"I'm not a fucking shrinking violet, _sweetheart_ ," she breathed, and kissed her, bruisingly hard. One hand buried in the flames of her hair, the other wrapped around her wrist, holding her down. She bit down on the plush of Anna's lower lip and Anna's back arched off the bed, hips thrusting against Bela's, head tossing from side to side.

"Fuck," Anna said, whimpering it, dragging it out into a long long keen of pure hunger. As Bela started to move against her, hips rocking fast and hard against her thigh, she moaned again, writhing on the bed, all catlike, sinuous motion.

"I don't need you to save me," Bela hissed, voice low and wrecked. All her movements were instinctive now, her body acting of its own accord to rut against Anna, lick and bite her way across her pale chest, up her neck. Letting go of Anna's wrist, she fumbled the buckle on her belt, shoved her hand inside Anna's jeans and then, deliciously, both of them crying out at once, inside _Anna_.

It was like a fever dream, the two of them delirious on sweat and secrecy and each other. Fucking again and again, until the orgasms rolled into each other, aftershocks twitching up Bela's spine. Until they both lost the power of speech and could do nothing but press their foreheads together, gasping reflexively, breathing the same air.

Finally, exhausted, they stopped. Lay side-by-side on hopelessly rumpled sheets. Anna kissed Bela's palm, pressed her face to Bela's shoulder. It didn't take long for her breathing to relax into the rhythm of sleep.

When she was sure Anna was asleep, Bela slipped off the bed and stood up. Her legs were aching, the muscles used and abused, and with every motion she could feel the soreness inside her. An ache that was familiar, that she'd known so often, and so rarely welcomed. She welcomed it now as she picked her underwear and creased clothes up off the floor, dressed herself.

She let herself linger by the bed for a moment, gazing at the shadowed swoops beneath Anna's papery eyelids, the fall of her auburn eyelashes, the bruises Bela had suckled onto her skin. How young and sweet she looked, defenceless in sleep.

Then she turned and left.

* * *

* * *

It becomes an obsession. All Anna's nights and days, every waking hour, blurring into one. A smear of backlit screens and legal pads. Her desk in Homicide, her desk in her apartment, the archives down at City Hall. Ink on her fingertips, underneath her nails. Smoking more than she has in years.

"We've got them on the run," Rufus says when they meet in the back room at the Roadhouse to compare notes. "Got the motherfuckers on the run." His voice is hoarse, cracking at the edges.

Anna just nods. Doesn't lift her eyes from the spiderweb of names and dates Turner has constructed from years and years' worth of arrest records. Her fingers tapping frenetically on the tabletop.

She's never felt speed as such an imperative before. But they've been given this grace period – Lilith and all her people lying low, keeping their heads down – and who's to say how long it'll last? Who's to say what will happen when Lilith judges it safe to lift her head above the parapet again?

It wasn't chance that Bill Harvelle got shot when he returned to active duty.

Henrikson, no fool, finds an excuse to wander up to Homicide and corner her. It's sometime in the afternoon, she can tell by how quiet the place is. Everyone else out talking to witnesses or the medical examiner. The Lieutenant doesn't bother with a greeting.

"Milton, do I even want to know what you and Turner are up to?"

She finds herself smiling up at him. "Probably not, sir."

"Right." He sighs, long-suffering, then pins her down with a look. Or tries to. Anna's a little past getting her panties in a twist over people giving her a _look_ , we're-very-concerned-what-are-you-doing-is-this-wise. She's got purpose. "Just for God's sake remember to sleep. And drink some goddamn water, you sound terrible."

It's true. Been living off of coffee and cigarettes for the last – however long. Her throat is scraped raw, but the burn of it is good. Anna ran cross-country in high school, and it reminds her of the way her lungs would tear and ache as she crashed through the wall and into somewhere dizzy and pure, high on endorphins.

"I know what I'm doing," she tells Henrikson, and it's not even a lie.

She calls Bela every night. Leaves a message on the voicemail. Tells her _hold on, stay safe, I'm working on it_. _I'm figuring this out. So close now, babe, so close I can almost taste it._

It doesn't bother her that Bela never picks up. All she needs is to talk, to say these things to Bela and have them be heard. And of course Bela will understand what it is Anna is saying beneath those words, and Anna understands what Bela is saying by saying nothing at all.

I trust you to know these things. I trust you to take care of this.

What they'll do when Anna finally has it, her reach no longer exceeding her grasp, she can't say. But that doesn't matter. There's never been any point in trying to make plans when Bela's involved. And that's fine, that's more than fine.

She's never wanted to go through life on training wheels, after all.

* * *

It's mid-afternoon when Anna finds it. Sitting at her desk, munching her way absentmindedly through a packet of salt-and-vinegar chips. Scrolling through the records of one of the construction businesses Lilith owns. Pulls up a list of investors. And there it is.

_Naomi Bell._

The Commissioner.

Anna holds onto the edge of the desk like it's the only thing keeping her from falling off the edge of the planet and spinning into space. Her thoughts are whirling that fast. Things slotting into place. The detective part of her brain flicking through all the evidence, everything that's happened across the last two years, all the ways this makes sense, saying calmly, _yes, that explains this and this and this_ , and all the while the rest of her screams, _fuckfuckfuck oh Jesus we are so screwed_.

Someone drops a manila folder on her desk and Anna jumps about three feet in the air.

"Hey, Milton, you busy? I got the boyfriend of my stabbing vic in interrogation room two and he's about to crack. Come on and play good cop." McNulty squints at her, adding as an afterthought, "You okay there? Looking pretty pale."

"Yeah, I –" Anna blinks, forcing down the burst of adrenaline. Focus. _Focus_. "I'm fine, you just made me jump, is all. And, yeah, I can – I can sit in with you."

For a moment he looks doubtful, then, ever practical, he shrugs. "Okay, let's do this."

Anna gets up from the desk – minimises the browser window with the incriminating evidence – and brushes down her clothes. Tries to make her hands stop shaking. Follows McNulty over to the interrogation rooms. Stops on the way to get the perp a cup of watery vending machine coffee. Steps blinking into the fluorescent lights.

She ghosts her way through the interrogation, an actor in a poorly-written play, going through empty motions and nothing else. Makes all the right noises, tilts her head and gives the perp the big sad eyes. Under the metal table her knee is jittering frenetically. What she wouldn't give for a cigarette right now.

The perp says, _I killed her, I killed her, Jesus, I love her but I killed her_ , and starts to cry in ugly open-mouthed sobs. Tears spilling hot down bright red cheeks. Anna watches him dispassionately, feeling nothing. Like watching an old film flickering on a faraway cinema screen.

McNulty clicks off the Dictaphone and Anna scrapes her chair back and walks out. Mind already on what she knows, on the merry-go-round of what the fuck does she do now. Call Rufus, call Henrikson, call Bela – part of her wants to go home and hide – Jesus –

On her desk is a note on the back of an envelope in Sergeant Landsman's scrawl:

_Commish wants you to go to her office ASAP  
what’ve you done now Milton?!??_

Well. That simplifies things a little.

"Okay," she breathes. "Okay, Naomi. If that's how you want it, let's do this."

* * *

As she walks down the corridor toward the Commissioner's office, Anna would swear her feet never touch the floor. Her mind caught in a focus so tight, so complete, everything is more-than-real and less-than-real at once. She's floating. Suspended in unreality.

Her hand comes up and she raps her knuckles against the mahogany door.

"Come in."

There's Naomi. Ice-grey suit instead of her dress uniform. Hair pinned up. She smiles as she sees Anna, gets up from behind her desk, shakes her hand and perches, casual on the edge of her desk. "Thank you for joining me, Detective."

For a moment Anna hesitates. She wants to yell, wants to have it out, tear up all the secrecy and slap all her cards on the table. Let out the knowledge that is burning a hole through her heart. Rage and scream at this – this fraud, this _traitor_ who is the reason Dean is in the hospital, Bela is on the run, and Lilith is sitting on a pile of gold while the city dies around them.

But she doesn't. She thinks, _what would Henrikson tell me, what would Bela do_? Henrikson, who understands the game of politics more than Anna ever will. Bela, who played the double agent for almost a year. And pulls that knowledge tight around her like a cloak, and smiles back.

"What can I do for you, ma'am?"

Naomi says, soft, almost maternal, "Detective, I wanted to talk to you about the future of the Major Crimes Unit."

Anna tilts her head slightly, keeps her expression calm, neutral. The way she keeps it when she's waiting for skittish witnesses to say what they're gonna say.

"Now I know I read you and Lieutenant Henrikson the riot act for arresting this man Alastair Rawls the way you did, but, well." She gives a little shrug, an almost self-deprecating smile. "I've been talking to the District Attorney and he believes it's going to be a slam-dunk case. Due to your efforts, Detective."

"Thank you." Anna nods her acknowledgement. Clasps her hands behind her back and drums her fingers against the back of her hand. Where the fuck is Naomi going with this?

The Comissioner crosses to the side of the room, where a crystal decanter and several small glasses sit on the top of a cabinet – mahogany again. She lifts the faceted stopper. "Can I offer you a scotch?"

"I'm afraid I can't. I have to go back to my shift afterwards, ma'am."

"Very wise." Naomi smiles at her indulgently, pours herself a measure of amber liquid and raises the glass to Anna before bringing it to her lips. "I've been reviewing the work you've done for Major Crimes, Detective. Impressive, I must say. Ambitious, also. I like that in an officer."

She waits, expectantly. Anna fumbles for a response, and goes for honesty. "We were a good team. We brought out the best in each other."

"Of course." Another smile, this one slightly knowing. Naomi moves back to perch again on the edge of her desk, legs crossed at the ankle. "I disbanded Major Crimes on the recommendation of Zachariah. However, having reviewed the case work –" She takes a sip of scotch. "- I am considering reinstating the unit."

"Oh." Anna blinks, caught off guard. "Well, I – was not expecting that."

"Mm. Seriously considering." Naomi nods, puts her glass of scotch down on her desk. Looks at Anna, blue eyes wide and earnest and locked on hers. There's an intensity behind that icy gaze, and it's compelling. Anna's half-afraid to look away, half-afraid Naomi can see right down to her soul, and suddenly she understands how this woman became Commissioner. "The unit did good police work. This city needs more of that, and anyone who could make that happen will be guaranteed to rise up the ranks. But you see, I need to be sure about that person. Do you follow me?"

Oh, she's starting to get an idea. "I'm not sure, ma'am."

"I need to be sure that that person will work _with_ me. Of course, it would be in their interests – I look after my friends, Detective, and who knows how high that person could rise? But I have to know who my friends are, and that I can count on them." She smiles, all gleaming white teeth. "If you're going to make your mark on this Department, to bring back the Major Crimes Unit, you'll want me as your friend."

_Yeah, so you can pull my strings like Lilith pulls yours._ Anna is gripped by a sudden wave of anger, the urge to punch that ever-so-reasonable smiling face to pulp. Almost aching with it. She digs her nails into her palm, and schools her expression to something wide-eyed, innocent. "Oh, I – well, I'm so flattered, ma'am, but I'm not sure I'm the right person for the job, I really –"

"Your commanding officers have always spoken very highly of you," the Commissioner says, kind as someone's mother, and that's a bare-faced lie. The only commanding officer Anna's ever gotten along with is Henrikson, and she knows the only time he's ever spoken to the Commissioner is when she's been reaming him out.

Anna shifts on her feet. Tries to sound guileless as she says, "Thank you, I just – well, it's this business with Dean Winchester. He's my partner, you know, and it really affected me when he was shot –"

"It was personal." Naomi spreads her hands, palms out, expansive. "I understand, Detective. We've all been there."

She nods as though she believes Naomi's cared about anyone but herself her entire life. "And we have the fucker who did it – pardon my French – and it's done now. It's over. And I'm just wondering whether this is really the career for me." She imagines her mother, what her mother would say, and adds, "I was thinking of going back to school, do a masters, maybe."

And Naomi smiles, nodding away, and the fierce hypnotic intensity of her stare fades. There's a little chitchat about graduate schools, career changes, meaningless, and Anna can almost _see_ Naomi writing her off. Looking at her and dismissing her as a threat. As anything more than a reckless cop who got cold feet when shit got tough.

Now that she's starting to believe she might actually get away with this, she's suddenly afraid. She's been coasting on the adrenaline and hyperfocus that's seen her through every dangerous situation this crazy job she does has put her in. It crowds out everything, leaves no room for fear. But now – now her heart is racing and she wants out. Now. Wants to be out of this room, this building, wants to be on her own so she can freak the fuck out –

The Commissioner dismisses her with some bullshit about preparing for a meeting, and another of those gleaming fake smiles. Anna resists the urge to run, keeps her pace measured and steady. Finds her way outside into the baking heat and leans against the sun-hot stone of the building and closes her eyes and lets herself shake and shake and shake.

* * *

 

" _You're sure she bought that story? You **sure**?_ "

"Yeah, Turner, I'm sure. I could practically see her brain whirring."

_"Then we take a couple days – you keep your head down, I'll see if I can't find any more evidence –"_

"And then we go to Henrikson."

" _And then we go to Henrikson_." Anna can hear the satisfaction in Rufus's voice, a mirror to her own sweet, sweet vindication. " _I'll talk to you later. Stay out of trouble, Milton._ "

"Yeah, yeah. You too."

The dial tone rings in her ear as Rufus hangs up, and Anna tosses her phone onto the desk. Then flops down to lie spread-eagled on her bed. She stares up, unseeing, at the water-marked ceiling.

She's exhausted. Exhausted right down to the core of her being, to the point that she can't even worry anymore. The fear that had hit her, overwhelming, when she realised that it had been the _Commissioner_ she was fighting all along, Lilith's poison trickling down through the police from the very top – it's gone. She can't reach it. Doesn't have the energy. Rufus knows, and they'll tell Victor and Ash and Bela, and together they will take Naomi down.

This much, Anna believes. This much, she trusts.

The air con in her building is on the blink, and even though it's nearly midnight, even though she's wearing nothing but boy shorts and a tank top, the heat and humidity are heavy on her skin. Holding her down. The sheets soft beneath her. She wants a cigarette, wants to call Bela, but she can't bring herself to move. Her limbs feel leaden. For what feels like forever she's been running on fumes and now that frenetic energy has deserted her. All she can do is lie on her bed and let the slow rolling waves of sleep drag her under.

* * *

* * *

"- and go through and purge anything referring to it from the archives, will you?"

"Of course." Bela didn't ask. You didn't question Lilith Devine. You listened and nodded and did what she said.

And besides, Bela had learned that people often explain themselves anyway, if you say nothing but listen steadily. Lilith was looking – not agitated, exactly, she had too much refinement for that, but perturbed. She was frowning, her chinadoll face a little taut, a little strained. Perfectly manicured fingers fidgeting with the glittering brooch pinned to the shoulder of her dress.

Sure enough, she sighed, and said, "After this thing with Masters, and Talley, well. The police have been too close to comfort." She shot Bela an acute look. "Cover all the tracks. Twice over. Do you understand?"

Bela smiled, her tame cat smile. Her I-am-your-creature-and-nothing-more smile. "I understand. Whatever we need to do to keep them off our backs."

"Exactly." Lilith sighed, then straightened up. Smoothed her dress, checked her nails, reached for the fur coat hanging by the door. "Oh, by the way, dear – Alastair will be around. He's doing a little check-up on everything for me. Security, you know."

She dug her fingernails into the flesh of her palm. Kept the smile on her face. "Oh, absolutely. Very wise."

Lilith threw her a hard, glittering smile, and then she was gone.

* * *

* * *

Anna's jolted out of sleep and years of being on-call at Homicide has her answering her cell-phone before she can even process what's going on. "Wha?"

" _… Anna, are you alright?"_ It's Castiel. She'd recognise that gargled-with-gravel voice anywhere.

"Yeah, yeah, I just – I was crashed out. Don't worry about it." She peeks out through the curtains – another sunny day well underway, how long did she even sleep? Rubbing at her eyes, she asks, "What's up?" Crosses her fingers that it's nothing bad, that it's not Dean –

" _It's Dean_ ," Cas says, and Anna feels the floor drop away, braces herself against the wall, and then Cas is saying, " _He's woken up, Anna, he's awake._ "

"What?" Anna rests her forehead against the window, barely daring to believe it's not a dream. "Cas, did you say –?"

" _Dean's awake_." There's laughter on the other side of the phone, hoarse and raw and bright as the sun outside. " _He's awake, and he's asking for you, so I think it would be best if you came to the hospital right away. Maybe put some clothes on first."_

"Maybe," Anna says, giddy with relief and the sound of her best friend's too-rare laughter. "I'm on my way, Cas, I'll be there as soon as I can. Oh my God. Cas, I'm so – oh my fucking God."

" _I know_ ," Cas says, just that. " _I know_."

* * *

It's another scorcher of a day. Riding the subway is like stepping into hell, the air damp with other people's sweat. Even back up at street level, outside, it's barely any better, the air pressure bearing down on her like an impeding migraine.

Thank God for air-conditioned hospitals. The last time Anna was here, her vision was swimming with a concussion, Dean laid out on a gurney like a body on a mortuary slab. It's surreal to be back, seeing straight and walking into his room with a smile tentative on her lips.

"Anna!"

"Hey, you."

And there he is. Still in a hospital bed, still connected to what seems like a dozen softly beeping machines. Tubes trailing over his shoulders and up his nose, an IV drip in his arm. But he's sitting up, propped up against pillows, and he's awake. Smiling. Reaching out to her.

Anna moves forward as if in a dream. Clasps Dean's extended hand, grips it tight. "You had me so fucking worried, Winchester." Her voice breaks, and there's something raw blocking her throat, pricking at the backs of her eyes. She swallows, blinks hard, feels a tear escape her.

"Aw, c'mon Anna. Don't cry, man, you'll set Cas off again." Dean pats at her shoulder, squeezes her hand. His broad fingers feel so thin.

"I'm fine, I'm fine." Anna swipes at her eyes with the back of a hand. Takes a deep breath, looks up to include Cas when she says, "I'm so glad you're okay. I'm just so happy. That's all."

Cas smiles his small subtle smile, eyes crinkling at the corners. There are deep, deep bags beneath his eyes, lines scored into his face by weeks of fear, but he looks to Anna as young and hopeful as he did that summer evening at her party when he'd first met Dean. "As am I."

"Oh, you two." Dean rolls his eyes. "Enough with the mushy crap, I'm getting a rash."

Cas turns a look on him, soft-eyed, not smiling yet still beaming, that makes Anna's heart ache to see. She knows how he feels. Here's Dean, alive and awake and cheerfully obnoxious. For a moment the two of them make eye contact, and Anna looks away, the intimacy of that quiet gaze something she cannot intrude on.

Then Dean says, "Okay, seriously. Anna, what's been going down while I've been under?"

"Um." Anna bites at her lip. This is her partner, her friend – he deserves to know, and she wants to tell him everything. Open up the way she did after that first feverish night with Bela.

But he's sitting there, wrapped in hospital blankets, his face thin and white under stark fluorescent lights. And there's something fragile about him now, the vivid vitality of him washed out. As though someone's smudged all of his edges, drained all his colours. God, he looks – like he just needs to be taken care of.

He sees it in her face. Of course he does. They're partners, damn good ones at that. "Come _on_. You can't – damn it, I'm part of this case too!"

At Dean's raised voice, the accelerated blips of the machine monitoring his heart, Anna holds up her hands in alarm. "Okay, okay! I can't tell you everything, don't look at me like that, I _can't_ , you know the rules."

"Yeah, I just didn't think _you_ did," Dean says, and Cas snorts out a little laugh. "Look, I – the last thing I remember is planning the sting, and then – then I wake up in the hospital with two fucking bulletholes in me. And I don't even know who shot me! I mean, I got a pretty educated guess, but," he shakes his head, mouth twisting bitterly, "I dunno. I've been laying here useless for weeks. I just wanna know that I haven't fucked up the case for everyone."

There is agony in Dean's green eyes. Cas is holding both of his hands tight and looking at Anna with the expression he always used to turn on her when they were children and he trusted her to fix everything.

Anna takes a long steadying breath. "You haven't fucked up anything. We were set up – Lilith found out about the sting. The shooter was who you probably think it was, and we don't need the eyeball witness. I got him confessing on tape, and –"

"Wait." Dean leans forward, eyes narrowed. "Tell me you didn't go after Alastair on your own."

"I wasn't _completely_ alone –"

"Jesus. I'm in a coma for a couple weeks and she goes all _Dirty Harry_."

"Like you could have stopped me, Winchester."

"Yeah, yeah." He extracts a hand from Cas's grip and waves it, signalling her to go on. "So how did Lilith know about the sting? Was it – it wasn't Bela, right?"

"No," Anna says, and oh the sweetness of that certainty. She hesitates, then says, "What I'm gonna tell you does _not_ leave these walls, okay?" Looks from Dean to Cas, and at their silent nods, steels herself and says, "There's a leak in the PD. Don't – Turner and I tracked the leak down, don't even ask me who it is. They're high up.  And I think they've been working with Lilith for a long time."

She didn't think it was possible for Dean to get any paler, but once again he's exceeded expectations. "Jesus. Anna, _Jesus Christ_."

"I know. I know."

"Does Henrikson know?" At this, Cas makes a sceptical little noise in his throat, and Dean shoots him a repressive look. "Don't. Henrikson's, like, the squeakiest, cleanest cop in the lower forty-eight. I'd trust the man with my life. Hell, I'd trust him with my _car_."

Even with the subject matter of the conversation, that brings a smile to Anna's lips. Dean and that car. Honestly. "Cas, he's right. Henrikson's not the leak. And no, Dean, he doesn't but we're telling him once Rufus has a bit more evidence."

Dean nods seriously. "Victor will know what to do. Just be careful. This kind of thing, it got my dad kicked out of the Department. Don't let 'em take you down with them."

Anna gives him a grin, all teeth. "I don't intend to." The responsibility of this knowledge she has is a weight on her, ever-present like the stifling humidity, the thick summer air, but she's not afraid. Not anymore. "I don't intend to."

* * *

After that, Anna produces the battered deck of cards she shoved in her jeans pocket before leaving, and the three of them play rummy. It's a bit of a tradition between her and Dean. Round after round of rummy to get them through endless night shift hours listening to the wire. By silent agreement she and Cas let him win the first game, but Dean dispatches his hand with such ease Anna realises, hey, he may have just come out of a coma, but the boy is still the best card player she's ever met.

"Okay, kid, game's on now," she tells him, and he rubs his hands together like a James Bond villain.

Dean's almost winning his third consecutive round when Jo Harvelle arrives, arm-in-arm with Sam Winchester.

The door opens behind her and Anna turns to see them both there, hesitating in the doorway, two young faces naked with emotion. "Hey, loser," Jo says, voice so warm it can't even pretend to sarcasm, and Sam's smiling so wide, dimples in his cheeks, eyes gleaming with tears.

All Dean says is, "Jo," and then, " _Sammy_." His face lights up and he looks like _Dean_. All that energy, the vitality, the colour that the long weeks lying prone in a hospital bed seemed to have leached out of him, it has all returned. Like seeing the sun rise again.

Wordlessly Anna gets up out of the plastic chair at Dean's left. Crosses the room, gestures the kids in. Sam takes the chair and his brother's hand, cards falling forgotten on the blankets, and Jo perches at the foot of the bed, saying something that makes Dean tip his head back and laugh. Cas watches the three of them, then glances up at Anna, as calm and happy as she's ever seen her tightly-strung best friend.

There's a tightness in Anna's chest, something stuck in her throat. Love, and happiness, and relief – here is the happy ending she could not bring herself to pray for – and yet – it's not quite right. There's something missing, for her.

Some _one_ missing.

She excuses herself, says her goodbyes. Makes her way back through the maze of corridors and steps out of that air-conditioned oasis into the sultry heat of the outside world.

* * *

* * *

Her lungs burned from the exertion of fleeing, the soles of her feet battered and aching, her left ankle shot through with pain. She groped her way to the corner of the room, blind in the absolute darkness, and there she sat. Back pressed against the peeling walls, knees drawn up against her chest and arms wrapped around them. The strap of her rucksack wrapped around one hand.

The pants of her breathing were harsh in her own ears. If they were outside, would they be able to hear? Were the walls of the vacant house thick enough to muffle the sounds of her?

She was gripped suddenly by the vivid mental image of Alastair, his head cocked to one side and his nostrils flaring like a hunting dog scenting prey. It was ridiculous, irrational, but here in the dark it seemed oh so plausible. He would _sniff_ her out, and then –

There were footsteps outside and Bela's head whipped up so hard she knocked it against the wall. She sat rigid with terror, braced to run, until she heard a female voice talking on the phone to someone named Paulie.

Limp with relief, she passed a hand down her face – her greasy, unwashed face, she wanted a shower so badly, _so_ badly. Allowed herself to shake. Muffled her raw gasps against her knees.

Christ. She couldn't go on like this.

The darkness was awful. It was like she'd been swallowed whole by some monster, like being Abigail again and waiting for her bedroom door to swing open. There was a battery-powered LED lantern in her rucksack, but she couldn't bring herself to turn it on. Not with her ankle still swollen where she'd sprained it doing a runner from the last place.

Fear of the dark, fear of Alastair. These days she was nothing but a ragdoll torn between the jaws of those two fears. No way out.

Except that wasn't quite true.

Her hand crept down to trace over the outline of the object in her jeans pocket. Her cell phone. The one she bought specifically for talking to the cops – hell, to talk to _Anna_. All she had to do was take it out and call that number.

All she had to do was admit, once and for all, that she needed help. That she couldn't manage. That after everything she had sworn to herself and the rest of the world, Bela Talbot _needed_ somebody else.

And what if? What if Anna, after all that, said _fuck you, no_. Laughed in her face and fucked her over and let her down like every other person Bela had ever, ever trusted. Some part of her insisted no, not Anna, this was Anna fucking Milton, Anna of the idealism, Anna who had screamed at her boss in defence of Bela when she hadn't even known her. Anna who she loved. But still, the rest of her said, what if? When has _love_ ever done you any good? What if?

She swung her arm out, slamming her fist against the wall. Her cheeks were wet.

Eyes closed against the fathomlessly black night, Bela breathed deep and whispered Anna's name.

* * *

* * *

" _Hello, sweetheart_."

The sound of Bela's voice after all those calls flipping straight to voicemail is almost a physical shock. Knocks the breath right out of Anna's lungs. "Hi."

" _To what do I owe the pleasure?_ " Bela asks, not unfriendly but dryly. Very much in her quick-witted, sharp-tongued, professional thief persona. Holding Anna just out at arm's reach.

"I know who it is. Who Lilith's informant is. And I talked to Turner and we're gonna take it to Henrikson and we're gonna send them both down. Lilith _and_ her spy." She grins as she says it, does a little drum roll with her fingers on the hot brick of the building she's leaning against. Watches the people flood by along the sidewalk, while Bela's stunned silence drags on and on.

Finally, Bela says, " _Wow_. _I – wow._ "

And that's how Anna likes to hear her. The finesse of her carefully polished mask falling away. "Yeah, you got it, babe. And look." She turns so she's facing the wall, her body shielding the conversation from all those passers-by. "I know what's going on now. It's safe – well, almost. More safe than it was. You know what I mean."

A non-committal noise from the other end of the line.

"I want to see you, babe. Bela. I want to see you. I miss you." Anna presses her eyes closed. It hurts to say it. To bring it out into the open where it can't be avoided. Hurts the way it hurts to lance a boil, relief and pain all at once.

There's a long silence while Anna's heart aches, and just when fear is starting to coil cold around her, Bela sighs, and says quietly, " _I miss you too. I do_. _Anna_."

"Bela."

A chuckle, soft in her ear. " _Where should I meet you?_ "

* * *

Bela seems to appear out of nowhere. One moment Anna is watching the anonymous New York evening flood of people pouring past her, perched on the wall beside her apartment building, and the next moment, there she is. Stepping out of the crowds like a mirage shimmering into focus, a daydream in grubby jeans and cheap sunglasses, hair curled in a heavy braid over her shoulder. Glancing left and right, biting at her lip. Double-checking the street numbers.

Anna just watches her for a moment, savouring the sight of her. Then she lifts a hand, waves, whistles. Smiles when Bela does a little double-take.

"I didn't see you there." In two long-legged paces Bela is in front of her, leaning against the wall between Anna's short-clad legs. "You look like a juvenile delinquent."

Anna lets her take the cigarette from her hand, steal a mouthful of blue smoke. "Just incognito, babe." She reaches out, hooks a finger around the arm of Bela's sunglasses and tugs them away. Without the protective shield over her eyes, she looks younger. Vulnerable. Something half-afraid, half-defiant in her face, as though she still expects Anna to turn her away. Tell her she was never anything but a means to an end.

There's a thousand things Anna could say to that. Only one thing she really wants to do. And so she leans forward and presses her lips to Bela's. The kiss is soft, almost chaste, and she can feel Bela’s sharp intake of breath. Feel her smiling into the touch.

It lasts only a moment, and then they part, foreheads pressed together. In the cage of her ribs Anna's heart is beating double-time. Just one quick kiss. God, what this girl does to her.

"So, are we going to take this somewhere a little more private?" Trying to sound arch, but Anna knows Bela too well to miss the edge of breathlessness to her voice.

She grins. "Well, I was gonna suggest we go for a walk, there's this great Lebanese restaurant I know about -"

" _Private_ , Anna," Bela says, putting every ounce of that cut glass accent to use.

"But I thought we'd be better off under cover." She points upwards, at the sky that has been slowly bruising over the last couple of hours, blue-black clouds drawn across like a curtain as the air gets thicker, heavy with anticipation.

“Mm, yes. So where do you have in mind?”

Anna plucks her cigarette back out of Bela’s fingers, takes a drag. Drops the butt on the ground and jumps down from the wall to grind it out with the heel of her boot. “Follow me, babe,” she says, and Bela takes her hand like they’re teenagers.

Hand in hand they go inside Anna's building, past the security guard at his desk, who nods to Anna as he always does. In the elevator Bela lays her head against Anna's shoulder. Down the corridor to stand before the forest green of the door to Anna's flat. She lets go of Bela's hand, takes her key from the carabineer at her belt loop, fits it to the lock. "Well, this is me."

Bela steps through the door and stops stock-still. Staring at the kitchen table with its collection of unwashed coffee mugs and the jam jar Anna uses for an ash tray, the couch with the ancient patchwork throw made by Nana Milton, the fridge covered in photos of Cas and their college friends, Anna and Dean and Pamela Barnes, even one shot of Anna's parents. "Anna ... this is your flat, isn't it?"

"Yeah." Anna lets the door swing shut behind her, steps forward to lay her arm around Bela's waist. Bela leans into her, but she can still feel the tension in that long lean body.

They're in uncharted territory here: every time they met each other through all the months of subterfuge and stolen kisses, they were in motels, hotel rooms, back rooms of dive bars and plush strip clubs, on the vinyl of car backseats, and once, memorably, the office at the Major Crimes Unit headquarters. Always in neutral ground, the demilitarized zone between both their lives, where they never had to see that they were police detective and criminal informant, never had to face the lack of trust that entailed.

Bringing Bela here could be the worst mistake Anna has made in this whole goddamn relationship, or it could be the best. It doesn't matter. She has to know. Either they'll become something more, something _deeper_ than an insane fling, or they'll fail. Do or die. And, hell and damnation, since she let Bela lean across the table of that cold interrogation room and kiss her senseless, Anna's been all in.

She rubs the silk of her cheek against Bela's. Says, "I thought you could use a few home comforts. After the last few weeks, you know."

Bela's spine goes ramrod straight and for a moment Anna thinks that's it. She's about to run into another wall of _I can take care of myself, I don't need anyone and certainly not **you** -_

Then Bela sighs. Relaxes into Anna's hold. "Yeah. Yeah, home comforts sounds brilliant right now."

"Something to eat?" Her grin is so wide it almost hurts.

"Mm. Bite to eat, then a shower, I think." Bela sighs, and her hand comes up to run lazily through Anna's hair, scratching gently at her scalp. "That sounds like heaven right about now."

It's with great reluctance that Anna disentangles herself from Bela, just long enough to retrieve the bowl of chickpea salad from her fridge. It's her own recipe, her speciality. She serves it with crusty bread and garlic bread, and they eat at the little kitchen table, ankles hooked together beneath the table. Every time Anna's seen Bela eat, she's been delicate about it, fastidious, but today she practically inhales her food, barely pausing to swallow. As if starving. When she finishes her own portion, Anna lets Bela steal forkfuls from her plate. Looks at the hollows of her face and wonders. Wishes - but that's pointless.

What's done is done. Bela's here now. Everything that went before is just another reason to bring Lilith and Naomi down.

Anna strokes the back of her hand down over Bela's cheek. Bela closes her eyes, turns her face into the touch, and sighs deeply. Like that she looks – so much younger. Younger and more carefree and innocent than Anna's ever seen her. It's strange and the strangeness hurts.

"The food was great, sweetheart. Loved it." She kisses Anna's palm, the seam of her wrist, then looks up at her. Eyes bright and calm. "Shower?"

Anna nods, leads her through into the bathroom. Explains how best to deal with the ever-temperamental electric shower, gives Bela a fresh towel, offers her a change of clothes, all the while doing her best to cover her sudden awkwardness at having a gorgeous woman standing barefoot in her bathroom and wanting so badly not to fuck this up. The slight sly edge to Bela's smile tells her that Bela knows, sees it. But she doesn't say anything. No quips, no biting sarcasm, just that gently teasing little smile.

"Right, well, I'll … leave you to it," Anna says, and backs out of the bathroom. Washes up the dishes and then sits on the couch, legs folded up under her. Stares unseeingly at the newspaper. Her heart is beating hard, hard, hard, restless with adrenaline. Do or die.

Any moment, Bela will come out through that door, and – and then Anna doesn't know _what_ , but something will happen. Something that will change them both. She can feel the pull of it like gravity. Like the pressure of the summer storm building overhead.

And she wants it. God, she wants it. Wants it more than every crazy damn thing she's done in a lifetime of crazy reckless things –

The sound of the shower cuts off. She hears the smack of wet feet on tiles, Bela whistling to herself as she does sometimes when her guard is low. Then the faint squeak of the old hinges as the door opens and Anna's head snaps up and there's Bela and she loses what she was going to say at the sight.

Bela stands there, leaning against the doorjamb, one foot rubbing at the other ankle. Her skin is still flushed from the warm water, her damp hair falling over her shoulders in a mass of dark waves. She's wearing a pair of pink cotton briefs and one of Anna's old button-down office shirts, open, and nothing else. Gazing right at Anna. An expression of naked _wanting_ on her face, her posture unaffected, completely free of the practiced languid sensuality that used to make Anna so uneasy even as it turned her on.

"Hello, sweetheart," she says, and there's this note of uncertainty, the faintest hint of shyness and that's it. That's all.

Anna nearly trips getting up, nearly falls flat on her face and she doesn't care. All that matters is this, crossing the room and taking Bela's face between the palms of her hands and kissing her. Deep and fierce and hot.

Bela responds at once, pressing forward, grabbing at Anna's shoulders, her waist. Hands moving, always moving, as though she physically cannot keep them still, cannot keep from touching. Down Anna's bare arms, the curve of her shoulders, along her spine, pushing up under her t-shirt and mapping out her belly and her breasts, tracing the waistline of her denim cut-offs. Desperate and ceaseless.

"Bedroom, bedroom," Anna gasps out, and though Bella nods agreement, it takes Anna to get them moving. She steers them backwards, into her bedroom, around the piles of her crap that litter her floor, and then they pretty much collapse onto the bed.

It's been so long. So long. She's missed this so fucking much – Anna feels heady with the rush of it. Dizzy. Devouring Bela's mouth, hands buried in her wet hair, one leg hooked over her hips to hold her there. Keep her. And when Anna squeezes, tightens her grip, using all her lean police academy strength, Bela moans into her mouth. Arches her back so her breasts press against Anna. Hips starting to move, straining, bucking, trying to fuck herself against something that isn't there.

And because Anna is feeling generous, she rolls them over so she's on her knees with Bela squirming beneath her, hair spread out over Anna's sheets, naked breasts heaving, her nipples dark and desperately hard. A vision of sin.

One hand still firmly locked in Bela's hair, keeping her still, Anna trails the other one down Bela's torso. Just a light touch, slow and gentle, savouring the feel of flushed, still-damp skin. Bela grabs at her wrist, tries to force it down, tries to snap her hips up to meet Anna's, but it does her no good. Anna's not gonna be rushed, not now.

She strokes her way down, runs the very tip of one finger under the elastic band of those soft pink panties – Bela gasps, says, "Anna, Anna," her voice so hoarse. "Please. God. _Anna_."

Anna looks at Bela, and smiles. Withdraws her hand. Grins as Bela tosses her head, whining in protest and trying to pull Anna's hips down. When she's quieted, Anna says, "Look at me. Babe, look at me."

Bela does. Icy blue eyes huge.

Keeping that eye contact, not hesitating for one moment, Anna presses the flat of her hand between Bela's legs. Flexes her palm and grins as Bela's hips instantly take up a frantic, desperate rhythm, humping against that scant pressure. With the pad of her thumb she traces over the thin fabric, gone damp with arousal. "So wet for me," she says, low, and Bela moans, eyes pressing shut. "Look at me, look at me – yeah."

Slowly, slowly, she starts to move her hand. Squeezing first, then rubbing, back and forth, back and forth. Watches as Bela starts to shake, hands grasping at the bedsheets, the colour rising high over her sharp cheekbones, spreading down her neck and across her collarbones. Hips moving with Anna's rhythm, rising off the bed in an effort to get more pressure, more purchase. Anna can feel her pulse beating between her legs in sympathy, her breasts aching to be touched. Sweat starting to bead at her temples, stick her shirt to her back.

When she thinks neither of them can take this tease any longer, Anna pushes Bela's briefs aside, slides two fingers into the desperate heat of her cunt. They both gasp and Bela's head snaps back, her whole body going rigid. " _Fuck –_ "

Above them there's a roll of thunder. Sudden and overwhelming. Anna waits for Bela to relax, and then she starts to move. Shallow thrusts, slow and steady. Thumb pushing up to circle at the bud of Bela's clit.

"Fuck," Bela gasps out again. "Fucking – _Anna_."

"Right here, babe, right here." She ducks down to kiss at the pulse fluttering in Bela's throat. The hot silk of Bela's skin smells of pine – of Anna's own shower gel. And that, it hits her in the gut, harder than it should, and she whimpers. Presses her face hard into the soft crook of Bela's neck, limbs going momentarily weak.

Bela takes that moment to rear up, wrapping arms around Anna to bring her along, pull them both into sitting upright, Anna now mostly in Bela's lap, her first two fingers still sheathed to the knuckle inside Bela. "You," Bela announces, nosing at the sensitive skin behind Anna's ear, "are still wearing all your clothes. And I won't stand for it." She bites down at the hinge of Anna's jaw, and Anna's involuntary shudder makes her hand jerk sharply, and Bela gasps. "Oh God, oh God – Anna, you _need_ to get naked – ah –"

And yeah. Yeah. Naked sounds good. Sounds damn good. She manages to get her t-shirt off one-handed, then gets stuck in her own bra. They're both still giggling when Anna kicks off her shorts and boxers all in one, and settles back down in Bela's lap.

She brings her fingers up to her mouth, deliberately licks at them, savouring the rich umami flavour, the taste of woman, of Bela. When Bela surges forward to kiss her, steal the taste from her mouth, Anna shoves her fingers back inside of Bela. Those inner walls constrict around her, tight, so tight, and Bela jerks. With trembling hands cups Anna's breasts, rolls her aching nipples one way and the other. Pinches, riding the shimmering edge of pleasure and pain, and Anna rewards her with a curl of her fingers, scraping over that spot she knows is just there. There.

"That good, that good, babe, you like that?" she murmurs, a half-meaningless litany.

Bela gasps, wordless, and one hand darts down to slide between Anna's legs. She almost screams at the touch – so sudden – after so long – feels the flush of wetness against her thighs. Clever long fingers stroke through the coarseness of her hair, part her lips, run lovingly over her clit, back to tease at the tender skin of her perineum, and by then Anna is whimpering. Losing the steady rhythm of her hand, just riding with the movements of Bela's hips.

"Please, please," she gets out. Head tilted back. Hair whispering down over her bare back. Bela licks down the arch of her neck, over her collarbone. Suckles her nipple into her mouth, bites down. Anna opens her mouth in a wordless scream, fucks her hips forward and there, there, fingers pressing inside of her, stretching and scissoring as her mouth hangs helplessly open. The strain as Bela fits a third finger into her cunt is almost too much, the sweet ache, the fullness, the feeling she might burst apart at any minute.

A flash of lightning that sends blue ghosts across her vision. Another clap of thunder hot on its heels. Sweat rolling slowly down Anna's sides, her neck. Rain beating against the windowpane. Moving her hand so fast her wrist is cramping, Bela clenching around her. Teeth on her nipple. A fourth finger fucking into her. The rain, the rain and the thunder breaking over their heads like release. Bela shaking and shaking, one leg kicking against the bed like a jackrabbit. Strands of hair sticking to her cheeks. Coming apart in Bela's hands, coming harder and wetter than she's ever come in her life, Bela's face pressed against her chest, her moans reverberating inside and through her, tears smeared against skin.

They settle, splayed out in a boneless heap of limbs. Anna on her back. Bela on her side, head on Anna's shoulder. Sheets all tangled around them. No energy left to pull the sheets up over them, to close the curtains. Nothing but this, Anna and Bela, lying together, skin against skin, breathing the same air.

Anna falls asleep to the lullaby of rain falling heavy on the window.

* * *

At some point in the night, Anna wakes, thunder booming out above her. For a moment, she doesn't know where she is, what's going on – and then she feels Bela sigh, her breath warm and damp against Anna's shoulder. She remembers. Closes her eyes and smiles.

* * *

Waking up for real is a slow process that morning. Like swimming up through molasses, bit by bit. Slowly becoming aware of the grey light flooding the room, the arm thrown easily across her waist, the sounds of the city outside. The gentle rise-and-fall of Bela's breathing.

Anna sits up, rubbing at her eyes, and Bela rolls over to lie on her back, smiling lazily up at her. Her caramel-coloured hair is a wild tangle, and there are pink creases across her arms and down one cheek. A dusting of sleep-sand beneath her eyes. She's still wearing that old shirt of Anna's.

"Morning, babe," Anna says. Bela yawns widely and then nuzzles into Anna's thigh. Makes a happy little sighing noise when Anna strokes her hair. "Sleepy babe."

They've never done this. Always, before, they would part ways instead of spending the night. Might take an hour or two to doze after a particularly intense bout of sex, but never fall asleep and stay all night and wake up together. Too dangerous.

How long they stay like that, Bela's face pressed into Anna's leg, Anna gently teasing out the tangles in Bela's hair, Anna couldn't say. Feels like forever and yet no time at all. Then Bela sits up and stretches, catlike. "I could murder a coffee right now."

"There's an espresso machine in the kitchen, knock yourself out," Anna tells her. Watches the unconscious sway of her ass and the long lean lines of those pale legs as Bela makes her way out of the bedroom.

All Anna's muscles have that pleasant sore tightness that always accompanies the aftermath of a really good fuck. She can still feel phantom fingers inside of her. Relishes it as she picks her way around the room, pulling on a tank top, a pair of fresh boxers. Goes into the bathroom to splash water on her face. Grabs a pack of cigarettes and her lighter, moves out onto her little balcony and lights up.

It's a grey day, the sky overcast but the clouds pale, the storm passed over. There's an occasional spot of rain, and the air smells clean, fresh. The oppressive weight of that high air pressure is gone, taking with it the sultry heat and that awful humidity. Still warm enough for shorts, but the city isn't an oven anymore. The summer weather has finally broken.

Bela appears at Anna's left. Hands her one of her own blue espresso cups with a casual kiss to the lips. Leans against the metal balcony rail, shoulder-to-shoulder.

They sip their coffee, pass Anna's cigarette between them. Watch the passers-by and the yellow taxis and the piebald pigeons fluttering building to building. Over the road, an old lady comes out onto her own balcony, hanging white underwear out to dry. She raises a hand to wave to them, and they both wave back.

"You hungry for some breakfast, babe?"

"I could eat."

"How about bagels? There's this diner round the block that does killer ones."

"Mm, sounds good."

Neither of them makes a move to leave.

After a moment, Bela says, "So you know who the mole is?"

"Yeah." Anna's mouth twists. "Naomi Bell. The police commissioner."

Bela sucks in a sharp breath, passes a hand down her face. "Wow. _Wow_."

"My thoughts exactly, babe." She takes a long drag on the cigarette, exhales and watches the smoke catch on the breeze and float out over the city. "She had Henrikson reporting to her every two weeks. Had access to all our files." Anna glances at Bela, then away. "You were named as a criminal informant on so many of those. That must have been how – I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Bela. I let you down."

"No." Bela grips her hand, so hard the bones of her knuckles grind together. "Don't ever say that. You got me out. And – and before –"

"I failed you," Anna blurts out. It's the first time they've talked about this. The first time Bela's acknowledged the ghost of that young girl, sobbing into her palms. Ever. After all those years Abigail Talbot has haunted her. And now here they are. There are tears prickling at the edges of Anna's eyes. All those years.

"You tried," Bela says fiercely. When Anna gets up the courage to look at her, her face is pale and drawn, but adamant. Her eyes burning. "You tried, Anna. You were the only – you tried. And don't you ever say you failed. _Ever_."

Anna ducks her head. Feels a tear escape. Concentrates on breathing. Brings the cigarette to her lips.

"You smoke too much," Bela says lightly. Takes the cigarette and has a good long pull, purses her lips and breathes out a perfect smoke ring.

"Nice one."

She gets the briefest flash of a grin. A million dollar, lightning strike of a grin. "So. The commissioner. What are we going to do about _that_?"

"Talk to Henrikson, first. Put our heads together, him and me and Turner and Ash. Dean maybe, if he's feeling up to it. You, if you want in. We'll figure something out. For her _and_ Lilith, I think we can kill two birds with one stone on this one." At Bela's highly arched eyebrow, Anna laughs. "Oh, you know me, babe. If it's easy, it's boring, right?"

Shaking her head, Bela says, "You are incorrigible." But she's smiling. Eyes warm.

"You love it."                                                        

The smile widens. "Oh, I do."

Anna kisses her. She has to. Closed-mouth, the softest touch of the lips. A breeze catches her hair, and she feels like she's flying.

When they break the kiss, Bela says, "And what then? I mean, you and me, what do we do then?"

Anna takes her hand. Interlinks her fingers. "I don't know," she says, and that's the truth. What happens next, she has no idea. No plan. Not for them, not for Lilith, not for Naomi. Flying blind. But she feels the same way she did, talking to Dean in that hospital room, when she realised she wasn't afraid: exhilarated.

"Whatever we want," she tells Bela. "We do whatever we want to do."

 

**Fin.**


End file.
